His Eyes Knew Only Fear
by Alex000000
Summary: Remus' first year at Hogwarts, young, scared and unsure how to act and fit into in a world where no one knew of the hold the moon holds over him. Will include all Marauders era characters. First fic so any constructive critism or comments is more than welcome and greatly appreciated. I own nothing, it's all J.K.R's.
1. The Goodbye

Even at eleven Remus looked weary beyond his years. He carried more worry on his thin shoulders at just this young age than a lot of people ever did in their lifetimes. And more scars too, scars that adorned his arms, hands and legs, just visible through his tattered clothing. Looking around him he knew that he would be an outcast, even here, surrounded by people of his own age, people from all walks of life, muggleborns, half-bloods, purebloods, orphans, he was almost certain there were plenty of all of those. But none like him. That much Remus was absolutely sure, he would never meet someone who had the same problem as him. No one had ever spelled it out to him, but he didn't need it, years of being surreptitiously stared at had conditioned his eyes to notice the slightest lie or hint of distain, so much so that the owner of the look might not have even recognised they were feeling it.

Surrounded by people he knew would never accept him if they knew the truth Remus pulled his ragged jacket around him, wearing it as a barrier from the outside world, the stares and hatred he knew he would be subjected to if they knew the truth about him. Even the late summer sun which was threating to sunburn the t-shirt clad pupils around him wouldn't force him to relinquish his fabric shield.

"Are you sure about this?" His mother said lowly to his father, both of his parents looking equally as ragged and tired as Remus himself, but minus the scars and bruising.

His father didn't even look at his son as he replied, it was more than habit for him now, he couldn't remember the last time he had looked his offspring in the face. It wasn't hatred that made him avert his eyes, but shame. Shame that he had plunged his son into a lifetime of prejudice and suffering. There had been a time when he could stomach to look at his son, but that was before they had been forced to accept that there was nothing they could do but watch their child tear himself to pieces every month, listening to his tortured howls and screams of agony at every transition, living their lives ruled by the power of the moon.

"There is nothing more we can do for him. This is the kindest we can be; let him have a life like any normal boy." John Lupin's voice cracked over his last two words, the guilt that Remus would never just be a "normal boy" followed him everywhere.

Unlike her husband, Mary's concerns were not with her son. "But the other children... the parents... is it _safe_?"

"Dumbledore says it is. They know the risks Mary, if they didn't feel they were capable they would have said no from the off-"

"He hasn't _seen _him. Christ John, what if he-"

Remus couldn't stand to hear his mother finish her sentence. Years of forcing himself awake to eavesdrop on his parents hushed night time conversations about him had conditioned his ears and tuned them into picking up his parents voices. "I'd best be off now. I'll send an owl every month as I promised."

The boy gave his mother a stiff hug, her unfinished fear still swimming around his head, before turning to his father, awkward. He didn't know how to act, goodbyes were supposed to be emotional, teary, and heartbreaking, but here was a man who hadn't looked at him for the best part of two years. He settled for formality, "Goodbye Father." And considered extending a hand but thought better of it.

The whistle blew and with one last look back at his parents Remus lifted his battered grey trunk in front of him and stepped off the platform into one of the carriages. He walked head down, along the carriages, hoping to find an empty one that he could hide in the corner and stare out of the window in. Eventually he found one and slid the door tightly behind him, and contemplated lifting his trunk up onto the rack above his head. He decided better than to make a fool of himself and tucked it away as best he could on the floor and tucking himself tightly into the corner as the train gave another impatient hoot. Remus squinted out of the window and saw that the clock had just ticked over onto eleven o'clock and at that moment the train started to pull away with a slow chugging.

"R-Remus!" There was a shout from outside, calling his name in a voice that was familiar, but rarely directed at him. With a start he flew to the window, a strange emotion filling his chest; something between hope, disbelief and nerves. "Goodbye... son." His father raised a hand, and caught his eyes for the first time in years, and Remus saw the glistening sheen of tears over them. Tears caught in Remus' own throat as he smiled back, muscles unsure of the expression.


	2. The Boy with Greasy Hair

The train pulled into Hogsmeade station. Remus had survived the long journey by sticking his nose deep into his book and answering as few of the questions the others who had joined his carriage as possible. In truth they hadn't been too keen to talk to him once they had seen the state of his clothing, and were mostly content to leave him to read the set texts for the year. Changing into his robes had provided a minor panic as he realised that he would have to bare his legs – and scars - in order to switch his trousers into his black school ones, but he soon noticed that they were too engrossed in their conversation about who would be chosen this year to join the "Slug Club" (whatever that was) to pay much attention to the scrawny boy in the corner. Once in his robes Remus had felt more comfortable, with no siblings or charitable family or friends his parents had been forced to buy second hand robes in Diagon Alley, which were still up to surprisingly high standard.

He merged in with the tide of black robed students flowing off the train and was greeted into the crisp Scottish night by heavily accented shouts ordering "Firs' years" to head in a downhill direction, against the movement of everyone else. Remus craned his neck to see where the shouts were coming from, worried that his ears were deceiving him and not wanted to draw attention to himself by making a simple mistake seconds off the train. He needn't have strained his neck though, the owner of the booming voice was clearly visible over the sea of children, standing head, shoulders and chest above the rest.

Remus darted through the crowd, muttering "sorry" more times than he could count at the slightest bump into someone. He only lifted his eyes up from the staring at peoples knees when he stopped abruptly at the back of a large gathering of people his own age, surrounding the gigantic man.

A few minutes later the man called out through his mass of facial hair to the impatient new pupils, voice echoing around the small station. "Alrigh' follow me."

The group turned and followed en mass, and Remus was sucked along, forced to become one with the group of children. And yet he still felt alone. All around him was chatter, high spirits and anticipation, yet filling Remus' body was nerves and a tight knot in the pit of his stomach. Maybe once he'd gotten a few cycles under his belt here he would be able to start to untie it, but for now it was staying firmly tied, tighter than a Gordian knot. For the past four years of his life he'd been kept away from people his own age, only seeing a few members of his own family, and the odd friend who dared visit the house. Those visits had been far and few between though, and filled with awkward silences and people looking past him, but at the same time furtively staring at him, as if half-expecting him to transform in front of them, in broad daylight. Remus just wasn't _used_ to people like this.

They came to a stop in front of a large dark lake, the haze of lights just showing around the edge of a bordering cliff. Remus hung back while the others got into groups of four and filled up the small wooden boats, unsure who to join. The hulking man saw Remus' apprehension and laid an enormous hand on his shoulder, causing Remus to struggle not to wince and pull away.

"It's alrigh' they're a bi' old but 'ey won' sink." He said gruffly. "There's enough space o'er there f' ya."

He pointed to a boat with only one occupant, a lanky boy with equally lanky greasy hair down to his shoulders. The boy sat hunched over on the wooden seat, staring sullenly at the bottom of the boat. There was something odd about him but Remus couldn't place, however he did recognise him as an introvert like himself, and realised that he could of picked a worse person to have to share a boat ride with. At least he wasn't going to try and pressure him into talking much. Or so Remus hoped.

"Do you mind if I join you?" Remus asked, approaching the boat. When the boy didn't turn around, just shook his head, greasy hair swaying, he took it as a cue to take a seat, glad that his presumptions on the level of conversation – or lack thereof – had been correct.

The boats silently glided forward at the giant's command, perfectly in sync with each other. From all around him Remus could still hear the chatter of conversation, but it was hushed, either by whispering or by the water he wasn't quite sure, but he didn't feel like breaking the near silence. By the light of the torch at the helm of his boat he studied the other boy. His nose was hooked, his hair overly greasy and eyes sullen, but it was his clothes that marked him out as different more than anything else. Although they followed the school rules, his shirt had a small amount of frills around the collar, and his robes gave off the impression of once being impressive and expensively tailored, but before numerous patches and darns.

Hogwarts came into view as they rounded the edge of the cliff, and while the rest of the boats emanated impressed "ooohs" and "aaaahs", from Remus and the sullen boys boat there was just the involuntary sound of Remus' gulp and the crack of the damp wood that made up the seat breaking off as his hand tightened hard around it. The size of the school shocked him, if it needed to be that big, how many students did it house? How many people was he putting in danger? His mother's words came back to him, and he started to think that maybe she was right. Maybe he was going to murder someone. He should never have come.

The boy didn't turn, but spoke for the first time. "Nervous?"

"It's just bigger than I imagined."

There was a pause as the boy lifted his head to look at the castle, and shrugged. "Won't be that bad."

Remus thought about it, and couldn't say that he agreed. "It's the people I'm worried about. Do you know any?"

"No." He flicked his hair and shot a quick glance over to the right, at the neighbouring boat. "Well, one... sort of."

The neighbouring boat drew a closer and its occupants looked over to them, but the boy had dropped his head back down and resumed his former position staring at the bottom of the boat, where water was beginning to seep through the wooden boards. Auburn hair shining as it caught the light of the torch, one of the girls called over to them, "Sev!"

The boy didn't move.

"Severus! I know that's you."

Severus looked up at last. "Lily. You made it then."

Remus could see, even in the dull light, that there was more life in Severus' eyes than there ever had been before. He wasn't sure where the moody boy's reluctance to talk to her came from, but he knew that it wasn't from hatred. That much he could tell, but the rest of the boy's emotions were shielded from his keen eyes.

"I told you I would." Lily shouted back as her boat slipped in front of theirs as they travelled in single file through a tunnel carved into the huge rock.

Severus gave a half-smile and resumed his position, eyes boring into the wooden planks again.


	3. The Memories

_A/N: Sorry this update is going to be really short, I'd written a long one a few days ago but only just realised that I hadn't saved before it crashed and I lost it all. Apologies._

The Sorting Hat was briefly on the boy's mousy hair before it shouted out the name of the house he would spend the next few years of his life in. He felt a mix of apprehension and pleasure from the word it shouted, relieved that it hadn't taken long at all to come to its decision. Even as someone who knew almost nothing about Hogwarts despite his half-blood status, Remus knew from all of the books he'd studied that Gryffindor had a habit of turning out exceptional wizards. He knew that he wouldn't be one, knew that a werewolf would never be something important, Christ, he'd barely made it into Hogwart's in the first place.

He took a seat near the sorting hat and table full of teachers, not wanting to walk down the whole length of the table, with what felt like everyone's eyes staring at him. A small rational part of his brain told him that he wasn't being stared at, that he wasn't the centre of attention – and probably never would be – but another part of him told him to run and get out of there. Remus really wasn't used to other people, and especially not in such large amounts.

Remus picked a seat next to a boy with long, dark, curly hair, almost reaching his shoulders. He watched the rest of the sorting passively, not joining in with the cheers when more students joined Gryffindor, or the boos and hisses when Slytherin gained another member. He saw a variety of people become his housemates, including the auburn haired girl who had shouted to Severus on the boats. After she got off the stool Remus' eyes moved to the – now severely diminished - line of waiting students, searching out the lanky boy. His grey eyes finally found him, looking concerned, annoyed and mildly disgusted. Unsurprisingly, a few moments later he was called up and sorted, after some deliberation, into Slytherin, and he walked past the Gryffindor table without so much as a glance to the girl, who had turned around waiting to catch his eye.

"You're new too then?"

The voice made Remus jump and took his mind off the conundrum that was the relationship between Severus and Lily. "Yes," He went to carry on making small talk but the boy cut him off before he could speak.

"Pleased to be in Gryffindor? I am, anything to get at my family." He was enthusiastic, almost bouncing on the bench in his eager to disclose why he was so enthusiastic to be in Godric Gryffindor's house. "Black's have always been in Slytherin for ever."

Remus sat in silence for a second, trying to work out how to respond. "Oh. I don't know what house my father was in. Mum's a Muggle see."

The boys grin grew even wider at that. "Brilliant! Talking to half-bloods! I'm so going to get disowned for this". He laughed loudly, earning himself some glares from the line of professors at the front as he interrupted the headmasters speech.

Memories flooded back into Remus' mind, snippets of arguments and slammed doors.

_"My grandson is a filthy... w... werewolf?"_

_"Martha please, it wasn't his faul-" That was his mother's voice._

_"It was mine though." His father cut across her, shouting, his voice filled with despair and guilt._

_There was a pregnant pause. Remus could hear nothing apart from his heartbeat thundering through his ears. Even at the tender age of seven he knew that something terrible was being argued about, and that it was about him._

_"Your fault?"_

_"I upset Fenir Greyback." Remus' ear was now pressed against the floorboards, struggling to make out his fathers hushed words._

_"Fenir Greyback! You're scum. Filth. No bloody son of mine."_

_"MARTHA!" His mother screamed, at the same time as a sharp 'pop!' and the house went quiet, apart from a slammed door, and then all that could be heard was the soft sobbing of his father._

_Little Remus had laid in bed shaking. It had to have been something about that bite he'd gotten, nothing else dramatic had happened in their lives for months. They'd gone to Hogsmeade to visit Honeydukes a few months ago, but that was it, apart from that they'd just sat at home, playing Chess and throwing Quidditch balls around the garden with his father – they didn't trust Remus on a broomstick. His fingers traced the edge of the bandage over the top of his thigh nervously._

"Is that a good thing?" Remus asked nervously, shutting out the memories.

The Black boy looked stunned for a second. "Of course! You should meet my family." Then suddenly he extended his hand. "I'm Sirius. Sirius Black." He spat the last word, his contempt perfectly clear in his voice.

His hand was grasped firmly by Lupin's scarred one, his lightly tanned skin contrasting against the paleness of Sirius' "Remus Lupin."

"Lupin? Never heard of it." He mused.

You wouldn't, Remus thought bitterly, my father had to change it when he was disowned. Because of me.


	4. The Scars

_A/N: This is the longest chapter so far - and about time for me to put up a longer one, even though it's not much longer. If people could review that would be nice, I'll keep writing, but I'd like to know where to improve, what to keep doing and people's thoughts and stuff like that._

With pockets stuffed full of chicken drumsticks Sirius Black and Remus Lupin staggered into the Gryffindor common room laughing. Remus had all but forgotten about his lycanthropy and was enjoying the company of boys his own age for the first time in his life. They climbed the stairs to their dorm room and collapsed on the remaining two beds, the others occupied by two other boys, clearly the same age as them.

"Hullo." Sirius said, through a mouthful of chicken. "Want one?" He offered, waving a slightly furry drumstick in his right hand.

The boy closest to him, wiry with messy black hair and round glasses perched on his nose shook his head. "Are you kidding? I'm stuffed!"

"No I'm Sirius." He said with a wink.

At the pun there was a laugh that was more of a squeak than anything else from the corner. Remus looked to see a slightly pudgy boy sat there with mousy coloured hair and a clearly nervous disposition. He said hunched over, cross-legged while the other boys were sprawled out on their beds. Or rather Sirius and the other boy were, Remus was sat on the edge of his bed, admiring the embroidery on his bed sheets, and remembering the nights that his mother had sat up embroidering tablecloths to sell down at the village market. These were remarkably better than hers, and he wondered if that was why they never seemed to sell very well.

"I know you are, moron." He said, throwing a shoe at Sirius, who counter attacked it with the remains of a chicken leg, before turning to Remus to introduce himself. "I'm James by the way. And this is Pettigrew."

Pettigrew jumped up off the bed and scuttled across the floor to shake Remus' hand. "Peter Pettigrew sir," he stammered, giving a odd little bow. The hand he proffered was pale and clammy, but Remus shook it politely, trying not to grimace at his limp handshake, it was like greeting a dead body. Just as he was about to introduce himself in turn the boys burst out laughing.

"What are you, a sodding house-elf?" Sirius burst out, rolling on his four poster bed in mirth. "Honestly James, what have we landed ourselves with?"

A werewolf, Remus thought silently, but didn't voice anything, or let his dark cynical thoughts show on his face. He pushed himself off his bed and bent down to his trunk, unfastening it and beginning to unpack his meagre collection of clothes. His family had struggled to get enough money to buy anything since his father resigned his job and his mother's Muggle money counted for little in the wizarding world – not that they had much of that either. A flask slipped from his hand as he was hurriedly trying to hide it in a draw and rolled loudly across the floor. He quickly turned to reach it, colour flooding his pale cheeks, but James hand grabbed it before he could get within a few feet of it.

It was in James' hands, his green eyes looking inquisitively at it before Remus could say or do anything about it. "What's this then, eh?" He asked, trying to read the scrawl that labelled the bottle.

"N-nothing." Remus said, hurriedly snatching it out of his hands.

"Christ, don't tell me you stutter too." He sighed, shooting Pettigrew – who gave another small squeak – a dark look. Then his eyes moved back to the bottle held in Remus' hands, then focussed on the hands themselves. He reached out and took one of his hands in his own, and Remus' was too shocked to stop him. "How did you get these?" He asked, turning them slightly so that the silver scars shined in the dim lamplight.

Remus' snatched his hand back and turned back to his bed, shoving the glass bottle roughly into his bedside cabinet. "They're nothing." He muttered, in shock and horror that they'd noticed his scars so soon, and panicking what he was going to tell them if they pressed it any further. Or what he was going to tell them if he gained any fresh ones at the next full moon. His mother had told him to tell anyone who asked that he had been badly attacked as a small child by a savage cat, but he knew that story wouldn't stand up to much interrogation, no, he would have to come up with something more believable than that if he was going to last here and not get caught.

They didn't realise that he had noticed, but out of the corner of his eye he saw James and Sirius share a look at each other, and in exasperation he threw down the moth-eaten jumper he was holding and stomped out of the room, heading down to the common room. Everyone in the common room was older than him by at least one year, everyone his age was busy getting to know their new dorm members and the people they were going to have to share their lives with for the next seven years. Remus glowered at the thought of it, surely it would have been better for him to never get to know his roommates at all, after all you couldn't miss what you'd never known and it would be easier for him if he didn't personally know who he had killed...

"NO!" He hissed sharply at his own thoughts, turning a few heads and as he bustled out of the portrait hole and out of the altogether common room. He didn't know where he was going, the only places he knew in the castle was the entrance hall and the common room, but somehow he felt a pull towards the top of the school, where he knew the heavens were. Usually he hated everything to do with the moon and the stars and night-time, but in this place, surrounded by people he wasn't used to, more people than he had ever seen in his whole life so far all squashed into one tiny pinprick of a place, he wanted to see the one thing that he knew would always have control over his life, the moon.

Eventually Remus made his way back to the dormitories, not sure of the time, but only that he was frozen and uncontrollably shivering from his long spell out in the night air. It had helped him clear his head a little, worsened the fear a little, but he wasn't so bothered about them seeing his scars anymore. That at least was a good thing. He had been hoping that he would be the only one awake by the time he got back, but James and Sirius were still awake, and worse, waiting.

"Sorry mate." They mumbled as he drew his curtains around his four poster sharply, kicking off his shoes and stripping naked before pulling his pyjamas out from under his pillow and stepping into them, grateful that they had enough tact not to burst in on him changing for a joke, it would be the least thing that he needed to have them see the rest of his scars.

"It's alright. Night." Remus said half-heartedly, settling down into bed and praying for a restful sleep.


	5. The Tension

_A/N: Sorry this won't be very good, I'm moving house and don't really have time to do this but I feel like I owe it to you guys. Thank-you for the reviews, they really mean a lot to me and help me keep writing._

The next day was awkward for all four of the boys, none of them wanting to bring the previous evenings conversation up. Peter opened his mouth once and started to bring up the topic, but Remus quickly told him to be quiet and the group lapsed back into awkward silence. Remus spent most of the time dwelling on the problem, wondering what he was going to tell them if they asked again – which he felt was inevitable – and how to explain his disappearance in a little less than two weeks' time. He drifted apart from the other boys slightly over the course of the day, walking behind them as they navigated through the school corridors and to their new subjects. Peter was also slightly apart from the boys, but that wasn't through choice, but rather through rejection, no matter how hard he tried to fit in. The chubby boy couldn't see it himself, but Remus could, and felt fortunate that although there was tension around him they didn't cast him off in the same way they did Peter.

Remus discovered that he was fairly good almost all of his subjects, particularly History of Magic which James and Sirius had gleefully enjoyed ribbing him over, thanks to months of studying his tattered textbooks. He was however, appalling at Potions, managing to melt his cauldron in the first fifteen minutes of the practical session, and causing Proffessor Slughorn to ban him from doing anything other than spend the rest of the lesson observing Peter, who wasn't much better than he was. In fact, Peter wasn't very good at any subject, not disastrous, but slightly below average. James and Sirius, on the other hand appeared to be good students, but without the focus to stop themselves trying to blow things up in almost every lesson.

At lunchtime Remus slipped away from the other members of the group, walking down to sit on a fallen tree near the Great Lake, the tension and stress of his situation was giving him a headache, and he was feeling particularly grouchy considering that the New Moon was that night. It was always worse at the start of a new cycle, having just been able to relax with the waning of the moon, and then feeling the animal in him grow as the moon did, until it burst out as soon as the Full Moon slid above the horizon. It was a just a reminder of what was to come, and how he would never be normal, how he would never be able to just relax like the other boys in his dormitory, just to be able to lark around, lose track of the days or –

"Go away! Leave me alone!"

The yell jolted Remus' out of his thoughts and he twisted around to look in the direction of the scream. The auburn haired girl, Lily, was running down the hill, with Severus stumbling after her, tripping over his gangling body in his attempts to sprint.

"Lily..." He shouted after her, the sun causing his greasy hair to shine and reflect the colours of the autumn trees around them, which were just starting to change with the night's drawing in.

She spun around and screamed at him again, "We were _friends_ Severus. I'm sorry I'm not a Slytherin, but I can't change it. Stop being such a pig." At her words Severus turned and ran away, but not before the sun picked out the glint of a tear on his cheek for Remus to see.

Lily turned back towards the lake, and saw Remus staring at her. He jumped to his feet. "I'm sorry. I couldn't help hearing... are you okay?"

She sat down on the tree that he had been sitting on, and Remus sat back down. "Yes... just Severus... he can be a real pig sometimes." She said, bending down and picking a daisy out of the long grass growing around the tree.

"He seems a bit strange." Remus said tentatively, discovering that the one thing he found more difficult than small talk was comforting someone, it wasn't something that happened in his house, his father brooded, and his mother screamed at him when he got too down to get out of bed. As for him, he just kept himself to himself, knowing that there was no point asking for help. Compassion was only something he had read about, not witnessed or experienced.

Lily looked at Remus curiously, "He is I suppose. But then we all are here."

There was a pause for a while and then Remus thought about the situation. "Yeah, we're all pretty strange here." He said with a wry smile, mentally adding, but some stranger than most. Absentmindedly, he traced the scar running across the back of his left hand, back and forth, back and forth, thinking about his situation in a slightly different light, finding dark humour in how crazy it was, he wasn't even of the same species as the people he was trying to befriend, and when did you ever see an owl making friends with a salamander

"How about you?" Lily asked, eyes transfixed on the scar he was tracing.

"Me?"

"Are you alright?" She asked, lifting her eyes up to look him in the face and noticing the small scars on his cheeks.

"I think so." Remus said softly. "I'm just a bit too strange for this place I suppose." Before she could ask why, and before he could really think about what he was doing, Remus pulled up his trouser leg, baring his scarred skin. Scars ran across his skin, in all directions, physical records of his otherwise hidden affliction. In that moment his body wasn't his own, he was completely detached, totally remote from his body or senses, he moved without thinking, taking a risk that he would never have done in sanity.

There was no gasp, scream or anything other than her eyes opening slightly wider than they were before; if the young girl was repulsed by what she saw then she hid it well. Tentatively she reached out with a fingertip and ran it down his leg feeling the indentations and ridges where his pale skin had repaired itself. "Does it hurt?"

The eleven year old werewolf furrowed his brow, that wasn't the question he had been expecting. None of her reaction was what he was used to or expecting at all. Usually it was screams, barely hidden revulsion, curses or at the very least shock. But here was a girl who _touched_ his scars, who didn't shriek or look away. And her first question wasn't how he had got them, but whether he was in pain. No one ever asked him if he was in pain, not even his mother. She just got his father, who came in, cast a few spells without looking at him and left again, leaving Remus to suffer the pain of the wounds that ran deeper than skin level. Remus shook his head in response to Lily's question, "No, not anymore."

"That's good." She said, and teased down his trouser leg, hiding them away again, but Remus got the impression she wasn't doing it because she couldn't bear to see them, but more because she sensed his discomfort. "Oh Remus..."

Fear and panic burned in his eyes as he suddenly grasped her by the shoulders. "You _can't_ tell anyone."

Remus was now hunched over, elbows on thighs, head on hands, regretting what he had shown her. This wasn't part of the plan; he wasn't supposed to be showing people things that could give him away, especially not people he didn't know at all. All he knew about Lily was that she was in Slytherin and had known Severus before they came here, and was pretty good at Charms. He had risked almost everything, without a clue how she would react, it could have all been over for him, and on his second day. That would probably be a record for the shortest stay at Hogwarts, less than two full days.

"No, no, of course not. Not if you don't want me to." She said, horrified by the very thought of letting his secret out, whatever his secret was. Her words eased Remus' mind slightly, he believed her, she didn't seem like the sort of person who would lie.

"Well, aren't you going to ask how I got them?"


	6. The Uncle

Lily stared at Remus, who was kneading his eyes with his knuckles, and would have been on the verge of tears if it wasn't for the sudden self-destructive anger coursing through his veins. The only thing he was feeling was the burning fury at himself that screamed at him how stupid he was, how much of a fool he was for showing her his scars, and more than anything else, fury at his condition. He'd lived with it for four years so far, but it had never really hit him, he'd never really considered how different his life was to other peoples, the young age that he was bitten helped in that department, but mostly his separation from other children, and people in general. How could he miss what he'd never known? But now that he'd seen other kids, carefree and happy, how was he going to survive? Remus' hatred for his lycanthropy flared, but more than that, his hatred for himself burst into a raging inferno.

"I know... Well I think I know..."

Remus leapt to his feet at Lily's softly spoken words. "H-h-how?" He stammered, too panicky to think. His wand was suddenly in his hand, raised and pointing at Lily, although he knew full well that he knew almost no spells to use with it. It just seemed the right thing to do.

Lily recoiled at his fury, raising her palms up in a sign of peace. "Whoa, Remus! My uncle had scars like that."

His wand lowered slightly, as did his temper. If she had a werewolf in her family then maybe she would understand, maybe she wouldn't totally fly off the handle at him. Maybe she wouldn't hate him. Maybe she would be a friend. She could write to him. That would be nice, he'd never gotten letters from anyone before, and he didn't know anyone to get letters off. And then, when she was miles away from him, he wouldn't be any danger to her, it would be safer and better for everyone that way, he wouldn't have to risk being responsible for any of their deaths then. It would be better if he just went home and wrote to Sirius and James and Lily and maybe even Peter and made friends with them that way. What was the point in him learning magic anyway, he would never get a job in the wizarding world, not where people could recognise him for what he was.

Remus pulled himself out of his reverie and back into the present by the rustle of wind through the trees dotted around the bank that they were on. A slight chill was building up in the air despite the midday sun, which was growing weaker by the day as the cooler autumn weather started to draw in and the wind blew unbidden across the wide expanse of the dark, Great Lake. "What's he like?" He asked, remembering why Lily had recognised what he was by his scars.

For a second Lily looked slightly confused at his question, but barely paused before responding, still slightly shook up from his anger. "Umm... well I don't get to see him much. He's better now I think; at least I hadn't seen any fresh cuts last time..."

"He doesn't hurt himself anymore?" Hope glimmered in Remus' eyes.

"No, I don't think so." A small frown was on her face as she struggled to remember details about her uncle. "I overheard something about antidepressants the last time, so I think he's on those."

It was Remus' turn to frown now, "Antidepressants?" He queried, his pronunciations of the Muggle word a little unsure. He totally lowered his wand now, confusion overriding his earlier anger and fear, and awkwardly turned it in his hands.

"They're a Muggle medicine for people with depression. It makes them feel happier." She explained. "That's why he used to hurt himself you see."

"Oh." Remus' said slowly, it eventually dawning on him that she didn't know he was a werewolf. She thought that he had been upset, that he had 'depression' – he thought he had heard his mother use that word once before but couldn't be sure where – and that was why he had cut himself. He felt disappointment clouding down over him like a fog and his shoulders slumped at the realisation that he still didn't know if he had found someone who didn't run a mile after knowing his truth, or any hope for stopping the pain in his transitions. There was still no hope for him; he should have known that his parent's wouldn't have missed any potential cures. If there had been something that would have helped him they would have found it, they'd devoted whole years of their lives into trying to find a way to take away the pain of his transitions, or at least relieve the mood swings that came with position of the Moon.

Tentatively she stood up and reached a hand out to him, touching him very lightly on his shoulder. Remus froze for a second, but relaxed when he realised that she wasn't going to hurt him. "It's alright Remus, we can think of something to tell other people if they ask. You won't be alone in this, just promise that you'll stop."

A smile crept over Remus' face. She might not have known the true reason behind his scars, but she wasn't judging him, and she was offering to help him. Together they might be able to get him out of this mess. And, this was an added relief, his status as a werewolf hadn't been outted at all. Recovering from his earlier fear at thinking she'd discovered that he was a werewolf Remus felt the strange sensation of companionship washing over him, and felt oddly uncomfortable that he was letting her believe that he hurt himself on purpose, even though the truth was much more tragic.

"Thank you." He said softly, looking Lily in her bright green eyes. Turning away so that Lily's hands fell from his shoulders he turned back to the castle, its towers glowing a bright orange in the light. He faintly heard the shouts of other pupils playing in the grounds and wondered where the other members of his dormitory were and what they were doing, were they even missing him? "We should probably be heading back now."

Lily made a small non-committal noise, but followed Remus as he started heading back up to the castle. They walked in silence until they got into sight of the courtyard where Remus had left the others. "I should probably go and make up with Severus..." Lily thought aloud.

"Any time you want to get away from him you know where I am." Remus said, hoping that he would be able to make friends with her. The girl nodded and headed off into the crowds of people and Remus stood still and watched her disappear, feeling the guilt of his lie burning stronger than ever.


	7. The Four

_A__/N: Thanks for all the constructive criticism guys, I will do my best to act upon it. I'll do my best to make the chapters longer but I'm afraid I won't be able to promise anything. Would someone be able to give me an idea of how long you'd like chapters to be? I've looked at a few fics and they vary a lot so I don't really know what I should be aiming for. If someone wants to let me know that'd be much appreciated. Thanks again._

_(__**Morningdove14**__: Lily isn't in Slytherin; everything is as cannon as I can manage. In Chapter 2 she was sorted into Gryffindor and she mentions being in Gryffindor in Chapter 5 in part of her argument with Snape. Also I agree that I didn't make it clear at all, but Remus was surprised that she didn't ask him which was why he asked her if she wanted to know, he never actually wanted to tell her that he was a werewolf despite his moment of insanity where he revealed his scars. I hope that clears things up for you a bit and you will continue to read.)_

Remus shook himself and pushed the details of his conversation with Lily away. He would only manage to make himself feel bad about not telling her the truth, and that was a very dangerous thing for him to do. No matter how kind and understanding she seemed to be to him he couldn't reveal the truth of his situation to her, not to anyone. That was the promise that he'd made to his family, and the promise that his family had made to Dumbledore, and Dumbledore in turn had made to the Governors. So much was riding on his ability to keep this quiet, and he'd already let more slip than he ever should have. He made a promise to himself that he wouldn't tell Lily anything more about his scars or anything which could compromise him or his family. As for the boys in his dormitory, he would tell them the same lie as he told Lily, that way there wouldn't be any chance of them hearing a different story. They might think that he was a freak, but it was the lesser evil compared to coming clean about his werewolf status.

His eyes fell on Sirius and James sitting on a low wall in the courtyard, with Peter hovering awkwardly by their shoulders, and Remus made his way over to them, the only friendly faces that he recognised in the throngs of young witches and wizards. Sirius and James were deep in conversation with each other, but Peter, excluded as was becoming the norm, noticed his approach.

"Here's Remus." He said, tugging on Sirius' sleeve, which he irritably pulled away as he tiredly looked up at Remus' approaching figure, clearly having tolerance when it came to Peter.

"Come back to join us then Remus?" Sirius said, shifting up slightly to let Remus sit down. "I was just asking James if we should start to find you."

"Yeah, where were you?" James inquired as Remus took a seat next to Sirius and made sure that his sleeves were pulled down as far as they would go without drawing any attention to them.

Remus looked at the floor and considered for a second what he was going to tell them. He didn't want to admit that he had wanted to get away from them, guessing that it was a social faux pas to run away from your room mates and potential friends. "I heard Lily and Severus shouting at each other and thought I'd better go and see what was going on before someone lost an eye to a wand." He lied, sticking as close to the truth as possible without giving anything away.

It was Sirius' voice that he heard first. "Lily and Severus?"

Remus was on the verge of answering when James cut across him. "Lily's that girl who sat across the table from us at breakfast this morning."

"I didn't notice." Sirius said dully, going back to inspecting the end of his wand

Peter piped up quickly, desperate to get involved in the conversation. "I saw her. She was talking to that boy with the weird cloak and long hair in Potions as well."

"That's Severus." Remus said to him, practicing patience with the shorter boy, even though he wasn't naturally compelled to do so.

Remus was quickly discovering that there were some people around him that he wasn't too keen on becoming friends with, and Peter was one of them. It wasn't due to being polar opposites, rather if anything it was because Peter reminded him of whom he could be; an outcast, begging for attention and not remotely interesting. Where Peter was close to stupid on the intelligence spectrum, Remus hoped that he was nearer the top, or at least that was what the morning's lessons had suggested, and where Peter followed the other boys like a lost puppy, Remus chose when to dip in and out of the conversation, without his interjects being totally ignored. Seeing Peter standing between the dark heads of the other two boys Remus realised how hard it must be not being included properly in conversation, and resolved to be pleasant to the blonde haired boy, if not particularly friendly.

"That greasy haired Slytherin?" James asked quickly.

Remus nodded his affirmation, wondering why he was so interested all of a sudden. Severus struck him as an odd person, but he didn't seem that interesting, and especially not to someone such as James, who had spent most of the time he had been with him engrossed in deep conversation with Sirius, plotting pranks that they were going to play throughout the year and reminiscing about the time they'd spent together – which to Remus seemed to mostly have consisted of escaping Sirius' family and doing whatever they could to ensure that he was going to wind them up as much as possible. His interest in the activities of one particular boy struck him as slightly strange even if he himself had shown interest in Severus after their short boat ride across the Great Lake together.

"Yes – "

"I hate him!" James exclaimed, jumping to his feet with the passion of his hate. "Did you hear what he said to me on the train? Did you hear him Sirius?" His brown eyes were burning behind his thick round glasses with the reminder of his encounter with Severus and his messy black was blown by the wind into an even messier state, giving him a slightly possessed appearance.

Sirius, well accustomed to James' temperament and outbursts after seeing him regularly ever since he'd been born, didn't bat an eyelid, but both Peter and Remus, who had yet to encounter this side of the boy flinched at his exclamation of hatred. Peter shrank back, as if trying to make himself small enough to hide behind Sirius, and Remus became awkward, and wondered how to calm him down. His mother would know how, she always managed with his father, it was when he was in darker moods that she didn't intervene, except for some failed shouting, which, Remus thought, did more harm than good.

"Of course I heard him; I was sat right next to you." Sirius replied calmly and passively, almost seeming bored by the turn that the conversation had taken.

"Oh. Right yes." James deflated, remembering that Sirius had been in the compartment with Severus had entered and caused a stir. "I still can't believe what he said. "If you'd rather be brawny than brainy..." Gryffindors can be brainy too!"

"Look at Remus, he's not got an ounce of brawn on him but he was top of all the classes this morning." The boys all laughed, Peter slightly later than the rest of them, as if he had to confirm first that laughter was appropriate, and even then, it seemed awkward. Nothing seemed to come naturally to him; it was all a huge effort.

His cheeks flushed a bright red, Remus tried to talk over the top of their laughter. "Look at me in Potions though, I was a disaster."

His modesty forced him to correct them, he wasn't perfect. He was far from it. So, so far, it almost felt like a crime to let them believe that he was. Almost as bad as letting Lily think that he got sad enough to hurt himself deliberately, but at the same time nowhere near as bad, she must be worried sick for him. Why had he let her believe it? He could have said something else, made up some other story. Remus silently berated himself harshly for the way that his earlier conversation had panned out.

"We all have our weak points Lupin, I'm sure we can get you through Potions if you can get us through the rest of the lessons."

Remus laughed weakly, dissolving back into his own private thoughts. In order to change the subject away from him he looked up at the giant clock face on the wall of the courtyard, clearly hundreds, if not thousands, of years old, but in perfect repair thanks to the spells repelling moisture and air from reaching the hands and iron face, preventing them oxidising. "Look, it's almost time to get to Defence Against the Dark Arts." He said, brushing himself down and waiting for the others to get to their feet.

Sirius leapt to his feet, whipping his wand out and getting into an exaggerated duelling pose. "Ready to get trounced, Potter?"

"You wish, Black." James snarled playfully, brandishing his wand even more extravagantly, causing Peter to scuttle out of the way in fear of the short wooden stick becoming thrust into a bodily orifice.

Suddenly, out of nowhere there was a reprimanding cough. "Boys!" Both play-duellers stopped quickly, and spun around in the direction of the voice, which came from an emerald green cloaked witch, whom they recognised as Professor McGonagall from their earlier Transfiguration lesson. "There is to be no fighting in the school grounds thank you very much." They both quickly hid their wands behind their backs, as if by hiding the evidence they would no longer be accused. "If I catch you again I will have to take points from Gryffindor. And believe you me, that is not something I want to do." She finished off with a slight wink.

"Sorry Professor." They both intoned, joined by Peter, who stopped sharply when they both stared at him in confusion.

She turned on her heel, before pausing and looking back towards them, "And by the way Mr Potter, if you ever feel the urge to practise magic outside lessons perhaps you should think about helping Mr Pettigrew here with his Transfiguration. You appeared to have quite a natural talent for it."

Swelling almost visibly James' head cracked open in a wide grin. "Did you hear that? A natural talent."

Remus sighed as he started boasting about his Potter blood, conveniently ignoring Sirus' reminders that his mother had been born a Black, knowing that it would be the topic of the afternoon. He did have to admit though, that James' matchstick _did_ look more like a needle than any of the others in his class, it had been shiny and had a hole in the end, even if it wasn't very thin. Knowing that he would have plenty of time to hear about James' Transfiguration success Remus hurried off to Defense Against the Dark Arts, not entirely sure what it would entail, but still keen to make a good first impression.


	8. The DADA Lesson

_I had to go to college today for health and safety training so I've not had much time to write, as we speak its 2:30am. A lot of this was written on my phone on the train home so it's not too good. That's also why it's so late in being published on here, but normal –bad- service will be resumed on Thursday. Other than my apologies I don't really have much to say, other than the Full Moon – and interesting parts – are coming closer!_

_(__**Dndchk**__: I thought that, but I'd also read that it's possible that James' mother was part of the Black family, and that made more sense to me as all of the wizarding families are interrelated somehow so I decided to roll with that idea rather than the train one, which felt a little clichéd after the Trio met on the train for the first time. Artistic license and all that.)_

Remus was one of the first students to enter the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, the others still dawdling behind him, not keen on having yet another lesson after years of doing nothing but stay at home. He took a seat fairly near the front, but not close enough to be thought of as too eager and took out his textbook and quill, laying them on the table in front of him as his classmates filed into the room. Peter sat to one side of him, and James on the other, with Sirius next to him. Sighing at the thought of having to help Peter through yet another lesson, Remus busied himself with making sure that all of his possessions were lined up with each other perfectly while waiting for the lesson to start.

They rose to their feet in unison as the teacher entered the classroom via a flight of stairs at the front, taking in the figure with interest, trying to judge how much of a push-over he was likely to be. He was of the plainest appearance, neither tall, short, fat nor skinny, with the usual amount of muscle, and his brown robes were equally as nondescript, but clearly not paupers clothing or that of an overly rich man. Remus saw the balding dark brown hair and guessed that he would be fairly tough on them; the older teachers seemed to be that way, if you compared Professor McGonagall to Slughorn, who had obvious favourites and let them get away with anything short of premeditated murder.

"Good afternoon students." He greeted the class and motioned for them all to sit down. "I am Professor Merridew –" He waved his wand at the blackboard and his name appeared in cursive writing. "This is also my first term, but I warn you, _I will be no push over_." As he spoke he fixed steely eyes on the boys sitting next to Remus, who were doodling on the corner of their parchment and whispering softly to each other. The next thing they knew they were thrown back on their chairs and were laying on the floor, staring at each other in shock.

"I repeat, I will _not_ be a push over."

James, arrogant as he was, knew when to stop, and if there was ever a time to stop, it was now. He picked himself up and offered Sirius a hand to pull him to his feet, and they both brushed the dirt off their robes. Remus caught a wild glimmer in Sirius' eye, and the next thing that he knew Sirius was digging himself into even more trouble with only the aid of his mouth.

"You _really _need to clean down here Professor," he turned around and bent down to show off the seat of his trousers. "Look, it's filthy!" To further enhance his point he slapped his rear, causing a plume of dust to fly into the air, much to the amusement of his fellow students. Remus just cringed.

"You _really _need to wash that mouth out. What's your name?"

Sirius didn't miss a beat. "Peter Pettigrew, Sir."

The real Peter gave a loud indignant squeak and scrambled to his feet. "P-p-professor! That - that's not fair."

For the first time in the lesson Merridew seemed to swell inside and his face reddened, giving him a defining feature at last. "I will decide what's fair and what's not, thank you very much. Now _sit down_, all of you."

James and Sirius sat down sheepishly, but Peter's mouth flapped open like a fish out of water before hitting his chair with a thud when Sirius grabbed hold of his robes and yanked him down. Remus considered telling the teacher about the truth of what had just happened, but decided against it, he would work it out in all due cause, and he wasn't going to be the one to rat in his companions, not like Peter so eagerly tried to.

"Now that Mr. Pettigrew has lost Gryffindor five points, would you like to copy out the first page of the textbook, '_What is Defense Against the Dark Arts?'_" The class gave a collective groan, both due to the lost house points and also at the thought of copying notes, turned to their textbooks.

The professor paused his lesson for a moment as the students copied down the prescribed section with scratching quills and concentrated faces. It was the start of a term and a new school and almost all of the students were keen to get off to a good start, filling their parchment with neat words and straight rows. Remus noticed as he looked briefly around the classroom at his classmates that it was easy to pick out the muggleborn students; they were still struggling with the unfamiliar concepts of quills, inkwell and thick parchment. He looked back down at his yellowing parchment and dipped his quill back in the inkwell ready to start the next sentence.

"Is Mr Lupin present?"

Remus shakily got to his feet, very aware of the pressure of the classes eyes on him and the sudden silence that blanketed the room. He could feel sweat prickling under his shirt and shoved his hands nervously into the folds of his robes. Above everything else, even through the sheer panic he was facing, he wondered what he had done wrong, why he was being called upon. There was nothing that he could think of that he'd done, unless he'd gone out of bounds at lunchtime, but even then he wasn't alone, Lily had been there for one, and he only said 'Mr Lupin' not 'Mr Lupin and Miss Evans.' Gathering his courage, he looked at the professor and replied, "Yes Sir."

Professor Merridew made his way through the tables to the boy, and motioned for him to sit down, which Remus did with much relief, it would be harder for people to stare when he was surrounded by a sea of heads. His own head was twisted round to look at the professor – as was James' although slightly more furtively – leaning over him. Remus tried to avoid the brown eyes which surveyed his face keenly without seeming insolent, the judgement was too much for him to bear when combined with the uncertainty of the situation. This was when Remus hated his affliction the most; there were always times when it sprung up in is mind, a niggling fear, that it would be the topic of conversation. It had been like that at his home, with the fear sometimes becoming reality.

"Professor Dumbledore is requesting to see you this evening." He said softly, as if he wanted no one else to hear, which only served to rattle Remus more.

Remus nodded dumbly and before he had time to think or question why, James, having clearly overheard, blurted out loudly, "The _headmaster?_ Why Remus, I didn't have you down as an anarchist."

Both the boy and the man shot sharp looks at him, even though Remus, who didn't know why he was being summoned by the headmaster, knew that the situation carried some gravity. James looked quickly back at his parchment after sharing a quick glance with Sirius, who had chuckled slightly at James' suggestion that Remus was an anarchist. The two boys started to hastily scrawl out the passage onto their parchment as the teacher continued to glare sternly at them, the reminder of their previous punishment still aching in their buttocks. Professor Merridew didn't pay them any more heed and turned his attention back to Remus, "You know where it is do you?"

"Yes Sir, the Eagle statue."

He nodded and slid a scrap of parchment across the desk to Remus, "You'll need this password."

Remus nodded as he scooped the parchment into his hand and tucked it safely into his pocket and muttered a thanks as the professor turned away, trying to turn his thoughts back to the simple copying task that had been set, but failing miserably. The only thing that he could think of that the headmaster would want from him was to tell him details of what to do at the Full Moon, or to tell him that his place had been reconsidered and that he would have to be sent back to England. He had compromised himself a little with Lily – maybe it was a warning to be more careful that he was going to get – but he didn't think that he'd given that much away. But on the other hand, the Full Moon was two weeks away, did they really need the discussion now, surely they could let him settle in and try to forget, as much as was ever possible, the curse he hid within.


	9. The FallingOut

_**A/N:**__ Thank you very much for the kind comments, I do my best to please. There's not much to say about this update other than whether people want me to keep putting little snippets of flashbacks from Remus or not, I feel like they're a bit of a cop-out as they're really easy for me to write, but I also feel that they're important in explaining why little Remus is as scared of things as he is and there's not much written about his pre-hogwarts years. Feedback?_

The end of the lesson finished, and Remus packed his things away quickly but clumsily, his mind preoccupied with worrying about his imminent meeting with the headmaster. He had a vague idea that it was probably something to do with his lycanthropy by the hushed voice the professor had spoken in, he realised during the lesson that Professor Merridew was keener to shout or reinforce his words with magic than talk softly. James and Sirius were also both painfully aware of the latter point, still limping slightly from being forced off their chairs.

"I can't believe he did that, the blokes a nutter!" Sirius ranted irately as they squeezed through the classroom door, pushed along by the exiting crowd.

"Your response was almost worth it though." James pointed out, much to Peter's annoyance. "Oh shush Pettigrew, it's just a joke."

Peter spluttered, trying to form a coherent retort but was too flustered and being slightly shorter than the other boys, crushed in the exiting swarm as they joined the masses of students in the corridor. He tried to speak to James, but he was deep in conversation with Sirius, reminiscing about the events of the lesson. Remus had his fingers crossed in the pocket of his cloak, hoping that they wouldn't get on to the topic of his summons to the headmaster, whatever questions they were going to ask him he knew that he wouldn't be able to answer, either because he didn't know, or because it was too close to admitting that he was a werewolf. Of course though, his hoping was futile.

When the crowd thinned out a little Sirius grabbed Remus by the sleeve and pulled him in line with him and the messy haired boy so that he was between them. "Now that meddling Merridew isn't around, what does Dumbledore want with you?" His tone wasn't deliberately accusatory, but to Remus' ears he might have well been snarling and spitting in his face.

"I have no idea," Remus said slowly. "I think my parents said he might want to see me..." He said vaguely, offering up a little more information, hoping that it would satisfy their nosey needs and stop them for pushing for more detail.

Again, his hoping was futile. Remus was starting think that he was truly cursed, everything that he hoped for, no matter how simple was always dismissed. The age old lament of 'why me?' kindled a fire in his chest and his jaw hardened as James' opened. "Why's that?"

There was a pause as Remus pondered what lie to make up. "I don't know. They didn't say." In the end he just claimed ignorance, making a mental note to think something better up by the time he got back from Dumbledore's office and could give them a satisfactory answer.

He tried to slip back into his usual place behind them, but they weren't finished with their questioning yet and pulled him back, James on one arm and Sirius on the other. He tried to curl inside himself as they did so, recoiling from the physical touch. He didn't feel threatened physically by them, but mentally he was screaming, panicking, begging to be let free; to be able to run away until his lungs seared and his legs failed him. Physical restraint, no matter how good humoured, troubled him beyond comprehension being associated in his mind to some of his most terrible transitions ever.

_Remus was around eight years old. It had been just less than a year since he'd been affected with lycanthropy and his parents were still trying to work out the safest way to deal with his monthly transitions into a snarling, muscled and bloodthirsty werewolf. This Full Moon they were trying restraints, and Remus had found himself strapped to the wall of the cellar in specially designed iron manacles, designed so that even as he transformed into his alter-ego he would still be held tightly and unable to claw or bite at himself and definitely unable to break free._

"_Good luck sweetheart." His mother said softly, in those days still as caring as she'd been the day that he'd been born. Maybe even more so. "You shouldn't hurt so much in the morning."_

_Young Remus nodded, although deep inside he doubted the truth in her statement. Even at that young age he had been forced to age quicker than his peers, he knew that it would be best to just agree with her, not to fight and not to cause a tantrum. For one it would only make him more violent in his transition, and would only pain his mother. He didn't like to see her cry. That upset father too, more than anything, and he'd spent a lot of the time bothered lately, feverishly working away in his office. Almost too much time to ever see his son other than for brief encounters over the dinner table. Little did he knew then that it was the start of their relationships decay, in another year's time he would barely even speak to him, even though he no longer worked day and night to try and find a cure for his son._

_His mother blew him a kiss and exited the door, and Remus heard the slam of the bolts sliding home into their locks. "One... two... three... four..." he counted softly; it was almost a ritual for him, "and five." She slid a heavy oak beam across the door shutting it firmly closed. Remus could just about hear her heading up the steps out of the cellar and the scraping of the slab being placed back over the hole in the pantry floor. He knew that she would lock that door too. At first it had just been the slab that had kept him in, but as he grew so did the werewolf inside him, becoming more and more hungry for the taste of human blood on his furry lips. Then they had started bolting him in, and for the first few times his mother had stayed the other side of the door, thinking that she would provide reassurance, but in werewolf form it only crazed Remus more, and he'd try to break through the door to reach the human who's scent filled his nostrils and made his jowls drip with saliva._

_The Full Moon seemed to take a long time to rise that night, and by the time it did Remus was aching all over. He remembered nothing from the moment he started to turn under the influence of the Full Moon; he never did, but in the morning he came to in total agony. Both of his wrists were red raw, the same with his ankles. His head hurt, more than it usually did following a transition, and although he'd not been able to inflict any bites or scratches to himself the pain in his wrists and ankles – where he'd been manacled – was unbelievably sore. At the time he'd thought that it had been from the iron clasps still around his joints, but they discovered later that with his unnatural werewolf strength he'd managed to snap bones in both of his wrists as well as badly cut and bruise the back of his head. They could only assume that it had been from smashing his skull against the brick wall during his bloodlust, Remus was just fortunate that werewolf skulls were thicker than human ones, otherwise he might not have been alive to wake up in the morning._

_The next month the manacles hung empty on the wall._

Remus fought to stop himself panicking as the memories of that transition flooded back. He tried to keep his voice calm and steady, "G-guys, can you get off me?" They seemed not to hear him. "Get off will you?" He snapped, wrenching his arms out of their grip. "Thank-you!"

James stopped and turned on him, angry. "What's your problem? First you have some huge secret about your scars, then you disappear for over half an hour, you've got some mysterious meeting with the head and now you're freaking out because we touched you."

Blood flooded Remus' cheeks; he supposed he hadn't been the most amicable person to the three boys who he had hoped would be his friends. He ran a scarred hand over a scarred face and sighed, his shoulders drooping. "I'm sorry James. And you, Sirius." He paused for a second and then caught sight of Peter. "And Peter."

"We don't need you to be _sorry_, we need you to trust us with whatever's going on and stop running away."

Remus looked at his hands, and struggled to think what to say. This was a pivotal point, he didn't want to lose the closest things he had to friends, but neither did he want to admit the truth. He didn't want to lie either, but he couldn't see any other way out of it. Maybe if he told them the same lie that he told Lily then they would believe it and not want to push him further encase they upset him and made him do something bad. He felt awful at thinking that, he didn't want to use guilt to stop them saying anything bad to him, he wanted honesty, but he was living in a world where the only way he could survive was through lies and deception. And he would have to get used to it.

"It's a-awkward. I've done some things..." He pulled up the sleeves of his robes slightly, looking furtively around for anyone who might be watching. "I did them."

There was a sudden clamour of voices, all saying different things, in different tones and with different emotions behind them. The loudest was Sirius, "Merlin's beard, are you mental?" followed by James, "Is that all?" And then Peter's pathetic, "B-but why would y-you..." followed a moment after.

Remus looked at Sirius and snorted, "Yeah I guess I am." Tactfully he ignored the statements from the other two boys and continued walking, thinking, and realising that he hadn't actually told a lie. Not yet at least, and they might not pry too much, he might not have to tell them a lie, he might just have to deliberately not tell them the whole truth, like the part where he wasn't human when he hurt himself.


	10. The Meeting

_A/N: Aww, you're all feeling so sorry for Remus. I promise things will look better for him on the friend front soon, although poor little Remus is always going to be worrying about something; he's been through too much not to._

_(__**Morningdove14:**__ I don't really plan anything I write, I never do and never have, so I find that what people say in reviews shapes what I write quite a bit, but it doesn't really hinder me because I didn't have a plan where things were going in the first place. I just write and do things how I feel the characters would and let thing develop however they do, but when people review and maybe ponder something I tend to try and answer that in my writing, or not, it depends on what sort of mood I'm in, whether I'd rather they had to wait a bit more and whether it would naturally fit in. Although I do agree that this has to be __my__ story, (even though it's really Remus') and don't want to rely on my readers. I just felt like it was too easy to pad things out with flashbacks, but I see now that they work quite well in showing why Remus is who he is.)_

_(__**Dndchk: **__First, I always "pronounce" your username as that drum roll thingy that comes after a joke, I dunno if you know what I mean or what you're aiming for but it always amuses me. Anyway, thank you so much for the review, it's helped me sort out whether the flashbacks work or not. I'm afraid Remus manages to keep up his pretences for a whole year so you'll have a while to wait, the only question is, what lies will he have to make up and will that make the Marauders think he truly is insane?)_

James sped up to keep up with Remus, who was walking quickly away as if trying to escape from what he'd just said. Remus didn't slow down when James got level with him, nor did he slow for Sirius or for Peter, who was scurrying to keep up with the briskly moving trio. Remus' head was swimming, not quite able to comprehend that he'd told them the lie as well. That was five people in one day, soon it would be the talk of the school, and soon it would be harder than ever to keep everything under wraps, what was he to say after the Full Moon? Someone would notice it wasn't quite as it should be. They had to. He was sure that everyone else's heads were swimming as well, they'd just been told something crazy about him. Remus didn't dare to look at their faces to try and read their emotions; it was all he could not to run away from them. Run and not stop running until he was far away from everyone, where no one could see him, no one could see his scars or know of his past. Where he couldn't hurt anyone, live alone in the wild like the wolf he was.

There was an awkward silence that filled the air, their initial outburst hanging in the air, none of them knowing where to take the conversation next. It was Sirius who broke the tension first, "Umm... mate... if you ever need to talk... umm..."

"I'm fine." Remus mumbled, one word in particular repeating itself over and over again in his memory, 'mate.' Sirius had called him 'mate'. That was another word for friend; did that mean that Sirius thought of him as a friend? Remus couldn't see why, he'd hardly spend any time getting to know him and when he had been around him he'd been moody and boring, but there he was offering, hesitantly, but still offering, someone to talk to. Someone to help him. Not that Remus could ever take him up on that, but the offer was still there, and it still made Remus' heart swell in ecstasy, he had a friend. Someone at least didn't think he was a complete freak. They didn't know the real him, but they hadn't rejected him thus far.

"Sure?" That was James this time. Remus wondered whether he was his friend as well.

"Yeah. They're just scars." Remus reassured them, but mentally added, 'until the next Full Moon', then berated himself and pushed the matter out of his mind. He would deal with it when it came around. But as soon as he'd stopped thinking about the problems his lying would cause when he gained more cuts the matter of his summons to Dumbledore arose again. "I'd best go and see the headmaster now. Get it over and done with."

"Is it about... that?"

"I – I think so."

"We'll come with you." Remus' face must have shown a brief flash of panic as his stomach twisted uncomfortably in his gut as James quickly added, "only to wait outside for you."

Sighing with relief, Remus nodded his consent and they wheeled around, heading back in the direction of Dumbledore's office, fronted by a giant eagle with its wings curled as if preparing to give someone a giant hug. "Can I come too?" Peter asked breathlessly after they'd gone five yards down the corridor.

In unison the other three boys groaned and intoned, "Yes Peter."

After two or three lost turnings the boys found themselves gazing at the huge bronze eagle. By the orange light of the flaming torches the eagle could have easily been crafted from pure gold, such was the shine it gave off. Remus hesitated before stepping into the bird's wide armed embrace, and hoped that the others wouldn't notice his legs tremble with nerves underneath his trousers. For any first year pupil going to visit the headmaster would be nerve racking enough, but for Remus, shy and with more to fear than any of his peers it was gut-wrenching. James, Sirius and Peter watched him as he intoned the password, and gave him a small wave, and quietly wishing him luck.

The eagle lurched into motion, carrying Remus up to the study. He was forced to grab at one of its as it spiralled around. When it had come full circle Remus could just see the three boys standing at the foot of the entrance and felt a strange feeling inside as he realised the loyalty they had to him, even within the second day of knowing him. They were still stood there, watching him disappear up into the ceiling, and Remus saw that it wasn't amazement that kept them transfixed, but concern. Then, suddenly they slipped from view, and Remus was left alone with his thoughts as the eagle kept carrying him towards his summons. However, he'd barely had time to rethink the reasons of his summons before he reached his final destination and the eagle ground to a stop, depositing him outside a thick oak door, studded with iron.

Remus stepped into the corridor and the eagle rotated again, this time anticlockwise, returning to its position on the floor below. A slight twinge of further fear snagged in his stomach as he realised he didn't know how to summon the bronze bird back when it was time to leave; he feared the unknown more than anything. Then it was too late to worry about anything, not the eagle, nor what was waiting behind that heavy door, because the door was open and the headmaster was standing outside it. The acclaimed wizard looked down at Remus and gave him a sense of being judged, although that was something that Remus was more than used to.

"P-Professor... I heard you w-wanted to see me." Remus stammered, his eyes fixed on the bottom of Dumbledore's beard, which was about a foot above his head, as close to his eyes as he dared to look. The man seemed much more intimidating close up than he did from the front of the Great Hall, and that was saying something.

Then – "Ahh, Mr Lupin, come, come," and Remus saw his eyes twinkle and beneath his silver beard a small, but inviting smile tug at his lips and Remus suddenly felt at ease. The man swung around, his cloak floating after him and showed the boy into his office, smiling once more as Remus gasped involuntarily in awe at the office. There wasn't one single thing that took his breath away, but rather the whole experience of the place; it was rippling with magic, from the portraits of hundreds of former headmasters and mistresses adorning the walls, to the strange contraptions on the balcony that reminded him of the planets, what must have been thousands of books, and, the most stunning, a bird covered in red, gold and brown plumage, who surveyed Remus with an intelligent black eye as he watched from his perch.

Dumbledore took a chair next to the roaring fireplace and motioned for Remus to take a seat next to him. From the depths of Remus' mind it struck him that a setting this cosy couldn't be the place for awful news, but he could hardly realise that revelation as he basked in the warmth of the fire. When he looked back at the headmaster he realised that he was now holding a fine porcelain tea pot as the rest of the tea set hovered next to him. "Tea?" He offered as he finished pouring a cup for himself and copiously added sugar with a silver spoon.

"N-no thanks Sir."

At his words the headmaster lifted his cup daintily from the silver tray it rested on and placed it on the mahogany table at the side of his chair and waved his wand to dismiss the tea set. "I have to say, Earl Grey is the finest tea I've ever tested. You might have known that by the password to this office though. I'm afraid it's a terrible habit of mine, I have such a sweet tooth."

They sat in silence for a moment, Remus growing more and more awkward after every passing second until he felt like he was going to implode with wanting to know what he was there for, but was too scared to pluck up the courage to ask. Eventually he managed, as Dumbledore was beginning to hum to himself. "Excuse me Professor... but..." He suddenly realised that he was probably being slightly rude to interrupt the world that his Headmaster seemed to be living in, a world that was touching the one Remus was in, but didn't seem to run in quite the same direction.

"I suppose you want to know why I summoned you." Dumbledore said, snapping back into the normal world. "I merely wanted to know how you were doing."

Remus thought for a moment. Half an hour before he might have hesitated more before answering the wizard's question, but his recent discovery that he had friends changed things a lot. He felt like he could make it now, that his lycanthropy wouldn't be the end of it all, it would make it difficult, he was sure of that, but he could cope, he could manage with it. Not tell them, no that would be too much too soon, but he could survive with their help and support, even if they didn't know the truth of what was going on in his life. "I'm doing well Sir."

"I see you and Lily were getting close this lunchtime." His light blue eyes twinkled as his words made Remus flinch in surprise. "There's not much I don't notice in these grounds." He added by way of explanation.

"She noticed my scars. I had to lie." Remus admitted, ashamed.

Dumbledore lowered his head slightly, his beard now reaching the purple buckle on his trousers, seeming pained by Remus' words. "You lied to your dormmates as well."

Despite his attempt at maintaining politeness, shock filled Remus' voice. "I _had_ to. There was no other way." His small hands tightly gripped the arms of his chair. "I couldn't tell them what I am."

A cool hand rested on top of his as Dumbledore made a calm 'shushing' noise. "I understand, my dear boy I do understand. You've done well." He lifted his hand from Remus' and studied the scars on the back of it through his half-moon glasses. "We can get Madam Pomfrey in the hospital wing to remove them, then there will be no need to lie anymore."

Remus nodded, wondering what his body would be like without its smattering of scars. He could barely remember a time where he wasn't covered in them, and although he would probably miss them, it would be a relief to no longer have to worry about making sure they were covered up all the time. To be able to bathe and wash in front of the other boys like James and Sirius did, and not have to wonder how he was ever going to manage it – this morning he had avoided washing, telling them that he had washed when he had disappeared the night before. "Thank you sir."

"You'd best go to supper now, I'll send you an owl nearer the Full Moon and we can have another chat about our plans, no need to rush things unnecessarily." Dumbledore got to his feet and Remus did the same, following him to the doorway. When they exited Dumbledore clapped his hands loudly once and he could hear the noise of the eagle sliding upwards once more. So that was how you got back out, Remus thought, relieved that it was just as painless to get out as it was to talk with Dumbledore.


	11. The Black Supper

_A/N: I know I haven't updated this for ages, so I don't know whether anyone will still be interested in it, and sorry if my style's changed since then, but I got bored and decided to continue writing a bit of this. If I kept getting time then I'll carry on updating, but I doubt it will be regular like before. It's a bit filler-ish, but I didn't know where I was planning to go with it originally._

By the time the eagle deposited Remus next to his friends he was perfectly calm, and for the first time since arriving at Hogwarts, happy. James, Sirius and even Peter, were still there, still waiting for him, still being friends and he found that warmed his heart more than anything else. It helped too that the meeting with Dumbledore had gone smoothly if awkwardly, and there was something that could be done about his scars. In fact, Remus practically bounced off of the bronze plate in his relief that he wasn't going to be thrown out of the school and that he wasn't entirely alone either.

"How was it?"

"Not too bad," Remus replied to James, cheerily.

"_Now_ can we go and eat?!" Sirius moaned, reminding Remus of a young puppy in the way that he was practically drooling over the thought of some food.

Exasperated, James groaned his assent and the boys headed back in the direction of the Great Hall, Remus not too worried about the questions that they would surely ask him. He would have to lie yes, but he'd had Dumbledore's okay about it and somehow that made it sit more comfortably with him. Remus' stomach growled, followed shortly after by Sirius', to which Remus' growled again, which caused all four boys to fall into fits of laughter and enveloping Remus into friendly camaraderie for one of the first times in his life.

"I think your bellies want to be friends." James laughed.

Sirius rubbed his stomach, "Mine's very well trained; it doesn't bite unless it's really hungry."

"Look out Remus; from the fuss he was making earlier it's starved!"

Remus backed away, his actions coming naturally; he didn't have to think about them at all, his body just flowing in response to his friends' words and actions. As he realised this he smiled, and decided that 'friends' was a good word. The quadruplet fell into a jovial rhythm of laughter and jokes, and it seemed as though they had known each other for years instead of merely days. As they filed into the Great Hall, they struggled to find a space where the five of them could sit comfortably between the already eating students, and eventually settled to squeeze in-between two groups of Fifth Year students, who looked terrifyingly large to the young boys.

Out of the group, it was only James and Sirius, who seemed unperturbed by the older pupils, Sirius because he was used to living in the shadow of his older brother Regulus, and James because he had that naturally outgoing nature. They tucked into the mountains of food in front of them, hardly seeming touched despite having arrived considerably later than everyone else due to the sheer amounts of it. Peter was skittishly shoving food into his mouth as quickly as possible, his already plump cheeks bulging as they became filled with pieces of mangled chicken and roast potatoes, and Remus casting glances at the others around him, unsure of how much he was expected to eat. Only in the last two days had he been free to eat whatever he liked, money had always been tight at home, and therefore so was food sometimes. James and Sirius were the total opposite, laughing with each other and challenging each other to see who could do the largest pumpkin juice fuelled burps.

After a particularly large burp Remus turned to James, his nose wrinkled. "Do you _have _to do that?"

"Aw ickle Remus can't burp like us." James teased, gulping from his goblet and letting out another burp.

At the rather pathetic belch Sirius cracked up into fits of laugher. "What the hell was that!"

Within moments the laugher faded as Sirius was cast into a dark shadow. Remus glanced up from his plate as silence fell about his ears, taking in the woman responsible. She was pale, with an icy expression to match her fair skin, and her long blond hair was pulled behind her head into a tight knot. Her hands, equally as pale as her face, curled around Sirius's shoulders, and what could have been an attractive face contorted in what was supposed to be smile, but transformed into a grimace by disgust. A long black cloak enshrouded her body, clasped at the neck by an ornate broach made of a metal which glimmered with a hint of green. Remus couldn't take his eyes off of her, he was as stunned as a prisoner going in for a kiss with a dementor.

"Well, well, they did tell me that I would find my little cousin over here." She said coolly, and Remus suddenly didn't feel so badly towards his own family, even at their worst he would take them over this girl any day. "Hanging about with the _Gryffindors_."

The way that she spat the word "Gryffindors" was oddly reminiscent of the way Sirius had said "Slytherin" in their first meeting, and suddenly a whole host of other similarities became apparent, but outshone by the biggest difference of them all, where Sirius was welcoming and cheerful, his cousin was harsh and brusque. They were the classic examples of the houses they were part of.

Sirius's throat rose and fell as he swallowed and swung around, furiously shook her from his shoulders. "This is my house. And a damn-sight better than the one I was born in."

A gasp escaped the older pupil's throat, and her hands flew to her throat. "You know that you'll be blasted off the family tapestry for this."

"See what I care about some moth eaten old tapestry." Sirius snapped back, and turned his back on her, picking his fork back up again. When she made no attempt to move he spoke without looking at her again. "Why don't you go and plot which half-blood's life you're going to make hell next?"

She haughtily walked off, her shoes clicking on the floor as she stuck her chin in the air, breathing strongly through her nose. Back at the table however, no one dared to breathe. The boys were stunned at the exchange that had gone on between Sirius and his cousin, and it looked like Peter was going to faint from fear. Remus was lost for words, his grandmother had disowned his father, but he hadn't been old enough to understand the bitterness there. It hadn't been a long and drawn out process either, that one exchange between them he'd eavesdropped through the floorboards had been the last any of them had ever heard of her, although he had found scraps of parchment that hadn't been swallowed by the fire in his father's hand addressed to her.

None of them dared to speak, or eat any food for a long time, until one of the older pupils flanking them turned to Sirius. "So you're Narcissa Black's cousin? I thought all the Blacks were in Slytherin."

Trying to put on an act of nonchalance even though he was clearly ruffled Sirius held out his hand to the boy. "Not all of us are the same. I'm Sirius."

A flicker of recognition passed over the sixteen year olds face. "So you're Regulus' brother then."

"Unfortunately." The bitterness in his voice was plain for everyone to hear, and the older boy gave up talking to him.

James shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, and Peter picked at his food again, too nervous to start ramming it into his puffy face but unable to resist temptation. Taking the initiative Remus took a final swallow of his water – he wasn't a fan of pumpkin juice – and stood up from the table, attracting the three other boy's eyes. "Come on; let's go back to our dorm for the evening."

They nodded, Sirius getting to his feet without his usual vigour, and Peter casting a wistful glance at the food left remaining on his plate until James nudged him and pulled him along by the elbow. "Leave it, the house elves will finish it off for you."

"House elves?" Peter and Remus asked simultaneously.

Sirius slapped his face with his palm. "Oh for crying out loud, where have you two been living your whole lives? Anyone would think you were muggleborn." He thought for moment and then asked, "Actually are you?"

With a shake of his head Remus answered, reluctant to give any more information about his past than was necessary. He was sure that Sirius wasn't like his cousin, Narcissa, but even so, he had clearly been brought up in a household with strong pureblood prejudices, and some of that might just have rubbed off on him, even if he didn't know it. And then there was James, he was distantly related to the Black's somehow, and although he didn't know much about his parentage, he was pretty sure that he was also pureblood, there was just something about the way he related to Sirius on most things that suggested it.

The pasty faced boy decided that it was his time to shine however, and went off into a spiel about his family. "I'm not pure blood... I'm not a mudblood –" they all flinched at the profanity, "– though. My mother was a witch you see, and her sister, my aunt I suppose, well she's very clever. She can tell people's futures. Mum won't let her read my fortune though, not since she failed to predict my father dying. He died when I was three from dragonpox."

At the mention of the death of Peter's father Remus glanced over him in a slightly new light, neither of them really knew their father's then. Even though he knew that it was sick and twisted, Remus couldn't help thinking that he'd rather be in Peter's situation, it was better than being ignored, and it all being your fault for being broken. Then with a wrench of his gut he remembered that his father had finally spoken directly to him for the first time in years as he was leaving, perhaps he shouldn't be so harsh.

_"Goodbye... son."_

_As soon as he heard those words shouted by his father as the train pulled out of the station Remus knew that they would be something he would cherish for a long time, the future was unknown, and almost as unpredictable as his father and his mood swings. If that was the last goodbye he was ever going to hear from his father then it would be good to be able to remember it properly. Remus vowed that it wouldn't be the last thing that was said between them though, he would give him the chance to make up for the recent years where he'd given up on helping him, or just being a father, and sat staring into the cold fireplace rather than help Remus with his learning._

"I'm going to write to my parents tonight." Remus mused softly to himself, and then realised that he had said 'parent's' instead of just 'mother'. Friends and parents, maybe coming to Hogwarts wasn't such a mistake after all.


	12. The Whomping Willow

The next few weeks followed much the same pattern. Sirius and James were continuing to spend most of their time joking and larking around, and Remus slipped in and out of the conversation, slowly becoming more and more relaxed within the group, although his inner tensions were building up with the full moon looming just another week ahead. As usual Peter lurked on the outside, never really part of the rest of them, more of a pet to be laughed at than anything else, although there was no bad blood between them at all, except of course when they drove Remus to insanity asking for help with homework assignments.

"Just let me look at it Rem." James whined.

Sirius looked outraged. "I'm getting it first! McGonagall loves you!"

"I'll still get detention for a week; she's as grumpy as my aunt's old cat." Sheepishly, James looked at his hands which were absent minded plucking his quill to shreds and shaking ink all over his pyjama trousers. "Not any more though, my uncle slipped her a love potion and she ran off with the neighbours' tabby."

Remus shot him a glance but didn't laugh, too preoccupied on trying to finish the essay without it getting torn out of his clutches to get distracted. "Maybe if you stopped plotting about poisoning your pets you'd know how to answer the questions. They're really not that hard."

His jaw dropping Sirius gaped at Remus. "Not hard? It's a whole bloody foot!" He grabbed his parchment from the table and thrust it in Remus' face, no more than three inches of scruffy writing covering the page. "Look at that! I'll never be done."

Realising his friend's desperation Remus handed his parchment over to Sirius. "Just _please _remember to change the words will you?"

All three of the boys subconsciously looked over to Peter, who was sitting in the dark corner, his face scrunched up near to the pages of his textbook as he tried to fill the foot requirement of parchment with large childish writing. Only the week before, both Peter and Remus had been given a severe warning by Proffessor Sprout when they handed in almost identical essays on the properties of Devil's Snare. Since then Remus had been loath to show his assignments to anyone, particularly Peter. Though somehow, and he never really worked out how, the wily pair of dark haired boys always seemed to get their own way, and their hands on the parchment.

Suddenly Remus noticed the clock on the common room wall and leapt to his feet with a yelp. "Merlin! I was supposed to be somewhere five minutes ago." Panicked he started shoving his inkwell and parchment back into his bag, managing to spoil the parchment in the process.

"Where are you off to?" James asked quizzically.

"Dumbledore." Remus answered without thinking and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm going to be so dead."

Shooting a quick look at Sirius he waved his hands at the panicking boy. "Go! Go! We'll sort things out here."

Sighing with gratitude the werewolf nodded his thanks to the boy, who had now started uncrumbling the parchment Remus had balled up to fit into his bag. As Remus dived through the portrait of the Fat Lady, cloak flapping behind him, James turned to Sirius. "What _is _the matter with that boy?"

Sirius shrugged, too engrossed in copying down Remus' work to care about where he'd gone. His face scrunched up as he tried to think how to reword '_the harder a person struggles against Devil's Snare, the faster and more tightly it binds them; if they relax, it will not kill them as quickly' _ in a way that didn't reveal its origin to be Lupin's goose quill. "James, how on earth am I going to write this essay?"

"Forget the essay! Something's seriously up with our mate. He's the only one of us who hasn't yet managed to get a detention but he's always getting called off to Dumbledore." James ruffled his messy black hair with his hand, but it was impossible to make it any untidier than it was before.

A small voice from the corner piped up. "Isn't it about those cuts?"

"Yes but... well he's never seemed that upset."

"You never know though do you, he's always a bit odd." Sirius added. "You don't know what's happened in his life before, think about how messed up my family is."

James shifted uncomfortably in his seat. After the experience in the Great Hall from Sirius' cousin Narcissa they had realised how bad things were for Sirius. Since he'd been spotted by Narcissa each morning he had been greeted by a letter from his parent's threatening to drag him back home if he didn't denounce his Gryffindor friends, or that they would blast him off the family tree if Narcissa relayed that he was showing any interest with fraternising with muggleborns. Fortunately for the young boy his older cousin was too busy throwing her weight around to get her own way in her own year to care much about her eleven year old rebellious cousin, who had developed an amusing habit of being able to slip behind a suit of armour or into a dark corner at almost any point in the castle in under 5 seconds.

From the other side of the common room Lily Evans looked over at the group of boys and made a mental note to talk to Remus when she got the chance. She hadn't been under the impression that he would enjoy people speculating about his home life behind his back, although he'd obviously trusted his friends enough to fill them in on the nature of his injuries.

-oOo-

Remus tore through the castle, aware that it was imperative that he made this meeting with Professor Dumbledore. Without it he didn't know what he would do, he had no idea how he would protect his fellow students – and himself. If he harmed anyone he would be hunted to the ground and surely put to death. Even if anyone found out what he was his life would be turned upside down, and he was finally starting to enjoy falling into the rhythm of classes, good food and friendship. He might have renounced the possibility of going to live in a werewolf colony, but that didn't take away that fact that the wolf in him brought out the need to be a pack animal. Involuntarily, Remus cringed at his own thoughts, he wasn't an animal; he was just as human as anyone else.

_When he was seven years old Remus had been taken to London with his family. Not knowing why the young boy was a mixture of nervous and ecstatic, unable to determine whether his parents were being secretive because they wanted to treat him to something nice, or because they were worried about the reason they were taking him there, but he hoped it was the former. He wondered whether they were going to make up for whatever had gone wrong recently, since his father had had the argument with his grandmother and letters started arriving through the door with a different surname to that which they had done before. Bringing the topic up with his mother she simply told him that they had become their own family now that Remus was seven and deserved a name of their own. It would be years until Remus discovered that that had just been one of many lies caused by his illness._

_Entering the giant hospital which was St Mungos Remus was in awe of the grandeur of the building, having spent the most part of his life in their little pokey cottage in Dartmoor. It was homely enough, but just wasn't quite as impressive as this building was. Hurriedly he was ushered down the cream corridors with curved walls which met at the apex in a point – he'd never seen walls built like that before, it was like one giant, stretched doorway – and was greeted by a pair of blue double doors. On the doors there were three words, one unfamiliar and on a plaque reading "Lycanthropy", which he recognised to have been also on the signs they had been following, and the other more familiar, but more worrying, "fucking animals". That particular word was graffiti-ed on in thick red._

_Too frightened to ask, little Remus gulped and hid behind his mother's legs as much as he could as his parents made a quiet exchange of whispers and pushed through the door. He was greeted by more graffiti, all written in different hands, but mostly containing the words "animal" or "freak"._

_Since then he'd been plagued by those words. That and the screams which had echoed from down the corridor, but at least they only came back as nightmares._

So wrapped up in his memories, Remus nearly ran past the Eagle, and came to an abrupt halt, panting the password to it as he caught his breath. He rode up to the headmaster's office praying that he would still be there, and not so angry that points were taken off Gryffindor. As a collective group the four boys had already lost more points than the rest of their peers had, although Remus had fortunately managed to undo some of that through his determination to make his time at Hogwarts worthwhile after the struggle to get him there. As the Eagle finished rotating Remus was alarmed to be greeted by Dumbledore standing outside the oak door, contemplating his pocket watch.

"Professor, I'm so sorry, I came as quickly as I could..."

The Professor waved his hand dismissively. "What is time but a socially constructed concept...?"

Thankful that the headmaster didn't seem to be concerned by his lack of timekeeping ability Remus relaxed somewhat, but the words intrigued him somewhat. What could he mean that time was a socially constructed concept? Time was just there, it hadn't been invented. If we weren't around time would still keep going on. But then, he realised, there wouldn't be hours and minutes, just days, and _months_. Time was everything to someone like him, maybe it mattered less to humans, but he couldn't forget about time, if he did then the results could be catastrophic.

Nervously Remus voiced his revelation. "Umm... Professor Dumbledore, I don't mean to be rude but... time is everywhere."

"Oh, and how's that?" He arched a thin grey eyebrow, interested.

"Well... it keeps going, with or without humans... people." He blushed as he corrected himself, never able to call himself really human. "There would still be months and days and all of that. For someone... like me... time is everything." As if looking for reassurance Remus craned his neck up, looking for something in his headmaster's face.

The old man's face was hard to read, and Remus wasn't sure what he was thinking, even when he spoke. It almost seemed like there was a hint of pity, but there might have also been pride. He couldn't work out why the man would be feeling piteous though, his condition was nothing new. It was awful, yes, he would never be normal, yes, but anger and disgust were better emotions than pity for someone like him. And why pride? It made no sense, Remus was a slave to the moon, not someone who should be thought of with pride.

"Then my dear boy, time is of the essence. Walk with me." Dumbledore strode onto the Eagle and clapped his hands, Remus scurrying beside him to be carried back down, wondering where they were heading, and fearful that they would be overheard while they were talking.

Forgetting that his entourage had considerably shorter legs than him Dumbledore forced Remus to scurry along meekly behind him as he strode through the corridors of Hogwarts without hesitation for their destination, or the path to get there. Although they had now been at the school for weeks Remus and his friends often still found themselves confused, and it didn't help that Sirius and James seemed wholly incapable of deciding on the best route to take. At times like that Remus was as stumped as Peter Pettigrew, having never had the experience of navigating through a large building unlike Sirius and James back in their large family homes. Fields and forests were Remus' forte, just like that of his less freakish wolf brethren.

Finally, they reached their destination, which was in front of a tree at the furthest end of the grounds, near the Forbidden Forest. When he realised they were walking no further Remus began to sweat, they were too close to the castle, he couldn't change here. All it would take was for the wind to blow the wrong way and everything would be over. His nose would pick up the scent and he would be tearing through the walls which were his home by day and his teeth would be... It would be a death sentence. It wasn't going to work out, he would have to go back home, forget ever coming here. How stupid they'd been to have even contemplated sending him here. It was suicidal. Remus was reluctant to tell the man this though; his eyes were glinting with the genius of his plan, and as they surveyed his pupil were obviously keen to see the excitement replicated there. Maybe he could leave for another reason, without ever letting him down.

"This," Professor Dumbledore said dramatically, spreading his arms wide, "Is a Whomping Willow. One of only five in the country, would you believe, and a rather fine example. Ogg our Gamekeeper collected it from the Forest of Dean especially this summer."

Not caring particularly about Herbology and still perplexed as to how this would keep his peers safe Remus interrupted. "Sir, I'm afraid I don't follow."

"Approach the tree Mr Lupin." Remus did as he was bid, and then jumped backwards as the tree emitted a noise which was a sort of leafy groan and swung its branches towards him. "The Whomping Willow will try to attack anyone who approaches it. Beneath its branches there is a secret tunnel to outside of the school grounds. You will be safe there."

Suddenly things made more sense to Remus, and part of him began to have hope for the future of his transformations. His whole life he had been locked in the cellar during those nights, and alone, and confined, he had caused considerable damage to himself, but now, if he was to be shepherded out of the grounds he could run wild and free, like the wolf he became. As long as there were no humans near him of course. Everything was about protecting the humans; no one really cared about the wellbeing of the werewolf. Except Dumbledore, he seemed to have thought things through thus far. He seemed to treat him like any other person. There were just a few questions which needed to be answered however.

Seeing the puzzlement form on Remus' face Dumbledore answered the first question. "The tree is enchanted to stop moving once a certain knot is pressed on its trunk." He waved his wand and an orb of light hovered from its tip and drifted towards the trunk, landing on a knot near its base. "The charm only lasts for two minutes to give you time to enter, but to ensure no one else will follow. You and I are the only people who know of this knot."

Remus nodded his understanding, and memorised the location of the knot as best he could. It would be disastrous for him to forget it in the panic of the full moon, especially as he knew his tensions would be running high without the added worry of getting out of the grounds.

"And I believe you have another question you would wish to ask."

"Will everyone be safe the other end?"

Dumbledore smiled warmly. "You will be safe." He emphasised the first word of the sentence. "Once you get the other end there will be nothing to restrain you. And there is no one who will disturb you; they believe that the house is haunted by malevolent spirits, a rumour which was set up by yours truly. Now, run along back to your classmates, I'm sure you should be getting back to whatever you were doing which kept you earlier."

The boy smiled, not wanting to reveal he had been kept by his friends trying to pilfer his homework, and was sure by now that they had copied all of their assignments that were to be in in the next fortnight.

"Thank you Professor."

As Remus Lupin headed in, heart pounding as he remembered he would be back to the Whomping Willow in very different circumstances the next night, Dumbledore remained motionless, his mind drifting off and contemplating the nature of time, and humanity.


	13. The Night Before

_A/N:_

_I woke up from a nightmare at 4 o'clock this morning and haven't been able to get back to sleep, so here's another chapter. It's probably going to be the last one before the Full Moon, and as usual Remus is avoiding the questions. Sorry this is a bit of a filler, I just wanted to write something and not go straight into the Full Moon scene._

**IndigoDragonRider: **_Thanks for the encouragement; I'm sure Remus will work something out! I also love the Inheritance series, been a long while since I've read them though._

**Morningdove14**: _I was very surprised to see your review; I was so sure I'd lost all of my old readers by now. Things just caught up with me and I completely forgot about this fic until now. I'll try not to stop writing it again, although I'm sure I'll keep coming back to it anyway. What do you mean about relaxing my writing? I naturally write quite formally, even in texts and stuff so if that's what you mean I might struggle doing that._

**Bloody Phantom**: _Sorry I didn't reply to you before about this, as I said before I didn't expect any of my old readers to still be around. I forgot that point at the time I wrote that part, but I've already thought of something to cover up the curse wounds._

-o0o-

"Remy! What took you so long?" Sirius asked, bounding up to him, a smug grin on his face. "Not that I'm complaining at all, some time alone with your essay was very... beneficial."

Remus laughed at his puppy-like exuberance. "And the rest of the essays I'm sure."

Feigning a look of being wounded, Sirius pouted. "It's not our fault you're the intelligent one here."

"Call it resourcefulness." James butted in. "That girl was looking for you? The one that hangs around with the grease ball."

"Lily Evans." It irritated him slightly that she was being thought of just by her acquaintances; surely she was a person in her own right?

He wasn't so sure why it bothered him so much, after all he barely knew the girl, they'd only spoken once in their life, and he'd made the terrible mistake of showing her his scars. It just didn't seem right to him that she was nothing more than Severus Snape's friend to James, someone to be sneered at because of it. It didn't help her case that she was the friend of a Slytherin; she was a Gryffindor after all. Although Remus knew little about Hogwarts, he knew that the tensions between the red and green houses ran strong, and it was just not done to mix. In the other houses, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, there was more amicability, both united by living in the shadow of Slytherin and Gryffindor, thought by some to be the more elite of the houses, although for very different reasons.

Mumbling, James responded, "Yeah that's the one."

Throwing his cloak down on his bed – the indoors seemed unbearably warm now that he had gotten accustomed to the cool night's air – Remus headed back down the stairs to the Common Room, sure he'd seen Lily bent over her books. As it was she was now staring blankly at her parchment, quill poised over it, one hand propping up her forehead, fingers curled through her long hair. As Remus approached the desk she looked up.

"Oh hey Remus."

"The boys said you wanted to talk to me." Remus realised he started to feel like a bludger, hit back and forth between different beaters as he was summoned hither and thither. He slipped down onto the chair opposite her.

Lily put her quill down in the holder and ran her fingers down her hair. "They were just talking about your..." She faltered and gestured towards his body.

Worry twitched through Remus' body, but was soon replaced by something else as he was oddly pleased that he was being thought about by his friends when he wasn't around, he wasn't just something that could be forgotten and replaced. That brought its own problems though, paying more attention to him was dangerous for him; he didn't want them to notice the patterns. He picked at the hole in the sleeve of his black school jumper as he cursed his bad luck at getting cursed. It had never been so difficult before to ignore the inevitable, back at home he didn't have to worry about anyone finding out because there was no one to find out. All he had to do was cope with the mood swings, go down to the cellar each month, and do his best to forget that this was going to be his life for the next seventy years. Not that people like him usually lived a full human lifespan.

That was something else that bothered the young boy unduly. Statistics told him that he would die twenty years before his human friends, if not through his self-inflicted injuries then through prejudice. It was strange to think that prejudice could kill, but as strongly as it was felt towards half-breeds it could. The visit to St Mungo's soon after his bite was testimony to that, so many werewolves died because they were too afraid of revealing their nature to the healers, or of being attacked in the graffiti covered hallways of the Lycanthropy department. Although it was hard to face Remus wasn't sure what would happen if things came to that, his wounds had never been seen by a healer thus far, and he had been fortunate enough not to catch dragonpox or any other malady that would make him in need of medical attention. Death wasn't a subject he thought about often, but when he did it hurt. A lot.

Forcing himself to think back to the immediate problem, Remus' smiled weakly. "It's nice to know they think about me."

Lily noticed that James' arrogance was starting to rub off on him, even if Remus' words had a sarcastic undertone. She hoped it wouldn't go any further than that, both James and Sirius were too arrogant for their own goods, too Gryffindor, too pureblood. "They were suggesting that something might be wrong at home."

A dark cloud covered his face. Home. Everything was wrong at home, from his father's silence to his mother struggling to keep them together and scrape enough money for them to eat and keep warm. Last week Remus had written to his father, telling him that he was starting to make new friends, he'd spoken to Dumbledore, and was thankful for the chance to meet people his own age. It had sounded rather forced, but after so long of accepting his father would never bear to look him in the eye again, or notice his existence directly to his face, he wasn't sure what to say. There had never been a return owl, although Remus stared wistfully at the flock of birds each morning.

"Nothing's wrong at home. Nothing more than usual." The qualifier stopped it being another lie. Remus hated lies, and hated more that his lycanthropy forced him to tell them. That was the worst part of it.

"Oh. Okay. I just thought you might want to know what they were saying."

Remus showed his appreciation with a smile, before noticing it was pitch dark outside. The familiar niggle at the back of his head that maybe they'd miscalculated rose again and he felt the urge to go and check his calendar rise even stronger than usual. No doubt it would be too late to stop it by now if he was wrong – and he was 99 per cent sure that he was right – but it was a ritual he had to abide by. And maybe going up to his dormitory and trying to get some sleep would be a good idea, the headache which always hung around for the week before the Full Moon was increasing, and he would be having a long night tomorrow. A very long night.

"I promised the guys I wouldn't be long, I've already ditched them once tonight." He made his excuses and practically ran up the worn stone stairs to his room.

The first thing he did was to dive into his trunk, still situated at the bottom of his bed, and frantically search for the calendar within it. Running a sweaty finger across the page he located the right day and was relieved to find that it was indeed the day before the night of the Harvest Moon. Satisfied that the pupils and teachers of Hogwarts would be safe for another night he shut the trunk and collapsed onto his bed.

Tactless as usual, Peter was the first to speak. "Why did Dumbledore want you?"

The other boys shot him a glance, to which he was entirely oblivious. Remus just busied himself with trying to untangle the laces in his shoe, pretending to be nonchalant about the whole thing. "Oh that, my mother's had a nasty fall, apparently I'm forced to go and see her tomorrow." He pulled a face, knowing that the lie would only work so many times. Deciding to try and avoid further questioning he turned the topic back to their schoolwork. "So, how many of my essays did you manage to copy in the end?"

"All of them of course." James replied, a twinkle in his eyes behind his circular glasses as he reached over for his wand to extinguish the lights in the room.

Remus groaned, knowing he was singlehandedly supporting their education, and kicked off his shoes. "You'll have to do your own work while I'm away."

In the darkness it was Sirius' aristocratic voice which replied. "Darn it Remy, I'm blaming your mother for the weeks of detentions we're going to get."

The mousy haired boy just laughed and wriggled under the sheets, praying for a goodnight's sleep to carry him through the next few days.

-o0o-

That morning Remus woke with the birds outside, jolted sharply awake from a nightmare he didn't care to remember. Checking the time on his bedside clock, he groaned and quietly slipped out of bed, straight into his slippers to save his feet from the cold stone floor. From there he collected his robes and padded to the bathroom, splashing his face with cold water in an attempt to wash away the horrors of the past night; the images of his friends' blood around their dormitory. As he stared in the mirror he ran his fingers over the scars on his face, wondering if there would be any additions to them soon. He hoped that there wouldn't be, but he was unsure of how the wolf would react to the new environment, would it be too distracted by the change of scenery to attack itself, or would the disorientation but ever present lack of food drive it into a fit of self-mutilating rage? Remus cringed at the thought and prayed for the former.

Aware that it would not be too long before his housemates started arriving to use the bathroom Remus pulled a towel from the heated slab by the showers and undressed, entering a cubicle and turning the shower on. The perfectly temperature water fell over his body as he stood, eyes shut so not to see the purple scars crisscrossing his maimed body. His thighs in particular were injured, a sizeable chunk missing from his left thigh, causing him to walk with a slight limp where the muscle had been damaged. He had no memory of what caused it, all the nights had blurred into one, all he could remember was waking up in agony one morning and finding a crude crutch cut from an oak tree lying next to him in bed. They'd never spoke of the injury, although he supposed it had been his father, not his skinny mother, who had fashioned the crutch.

"At least he acknowledged my existence." Remus hissed into the shower, reaching behind him to increase the temperature. Immediately he knew he'd been unfair, his father had tried to talk to him, there would be some reason he hadn't replied; perhaps the owl had been lost. "I'm sorry father, it's just so hard."

Tears mixed with the water as he allowed himself some unusual time to pity himself. It was unlike him to be so angry and upset about his situation, but being around children his own age had highlighted the difference between him and other boys. It wasn't helped by the imminent Full Moon either, his headache was almost nearing crescendo point, and there were still eight hours to go until the pressure would be released and a new pain would begin. And that pain would continue on until six o'clock the following morning where he would wake, battered, bruised, and painfully alone.

He shook himself and reminded himself that it had to be done. He would survive, and that was that. Remus reached for the shampoo and began to wash his hair, hoping that the massaging movements would help to ease his headache; he didn't want to be going to the hospital wing, where Madam Pomfrey would be. He had no idea what her thoughts were on people like him, and wasn't keen to find out before it was necessary encase they weren't agreeable. It would go soon anyway, and he would have bigger things to worry about, like not killing anyone.

Angry again he cursed himself for thinking that, bringing back the images from the night before. Nightmares like that one always hung around bitterly for the remainder of the day, especially when the subject was so poignant.

Hearing voices from above, he quickly rinsed the last traces of shampoo from his hair, thankful that the stinging qualities had been removed magically as it ran over his face. Turning off the water he wrapped the towel around his skinny body and dried himself before redressing in his robes, leaving his pyjamas for the house elves to clean, iron and replace under his pillow to be left unused that night.


	14. The Full Moon

_A/N: Sorry this is a shorter chapter, I wanted to put all of the aftermath into one chapter._

**IndigoDragonRider**: _I'm not too sure if I want to explain things outside of the story, but I'll try to explain it in the next chapter in a way that it makes sense. I've got his home situation mapped out in my head but I've noticed that it's not coming across clearly in text because I'm telling it in fragments. I don't actually spend that much time reading fanfiction, and it's normally all Remus based if I do because he reminds me so much of someone I used to know. If I do ever come across any nice Inheritance fanfiction I'll let you know._

**Morningdove14**: _Thank you! I know what you mean now._

**annataz321**: _Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying it._

-o0o-

Worries about this evening had tormented Remus throughout all of his classes, and he was reduced to only being able to smile weakly when Sirius and James released a giant beetle they'd captured over lunch just above Severus Snape's head, causing the Slytherin to squeal girlishly. He only made a half-hearted attempt during their flying lesson too, not that it was his forte in the first place. James and Sirius were naturals though, which left Remus with Peter as he clung feverishly onto his broomstick in an attempt to follow the two seasoned fliers into the air, but not once did he spend more than fifteen seconds off the ground.

Finally, after spending the last half an hour in painfully awkward silence Remus stood up from the chair in the common room and announced that he needed to pack to leave and see his mother, unable to spend another moment in the company of humans while his heart fluttered nervously in his chest. The fear that he would misread the time and be left in the building when the moon arose was unbearable, never had he been left to deal with the arrangements of his transformations alone before, there had always been the back-up of his mother ushering him into the basement. But now he was over seven hundred miles away, somewhere deep in the Scottish countryside and surrounded by more humans than he had ever laid eyes on in his entire life before.

"D'you need a hand?" Peter asked eagerly.

For a moment Remus considered, thinking that it might be nice to have some company, after all he would be left by himself as he recovered; his pretence didn't include getting injured. Just as he was opening his mouth the decision was taken out of his hands.

"Come and help me tie this knot." James called over, and Peter, always willing to impress, scuttled over. As Remus looked at the boys engrossed in whatever trick device they were plotting he swore James winked at him.

Perplexed by the change in attitude from inquisitive to respectful, Remus headed up to the dormitory, now thankful that he wasn't having to answer Peter's repetitive questions. He didn't dislike the boy, it was just irritating that he seemed to have no free thoughts of his own, always following what James and Sirius did. He was always eager to please, but somehow that wasn't always a good thing. Once in the dormitory, Remus rummaged through his trunk and located the vial which had rolled into James' hands on their first night and threw it into his school bag, followed by a fresh set of clothes and a handful of bandages. With his supplies packed Remus took a deep breath and studied himself in the mirror on the wall opposite, knowing that this time his face could end up hideously disfigured. Not that he was a vein person of course; it was just worrying to know that his reflection could seem like a stranger's by the next sunrise.

His bag prepared for when he woke up the next morning, he bit the bullet and returned to the common room, running through what he would say in his head over and over again, knowing full well that he would probably end up saying something which was the total opposite. It was nice to try and plan though. His grey eyes took in the room in its entirety, the circular shape, plump sofas and chairs, roaring fireplace and red Gryffindor banners hanging from the window. Everything about it was cosy and homely, and Remus wished he didn't have to leave to go through crawling through some damp, dark tunnel beneath a tree that attempted to knock people into next week. If he was ever to have a chance of returning though, he would have to leave, and not slip up. Any little slip up could turn the innocent eleven year old into a murderer, and destroy any hopes of feeling the warmth from that roaring fire again.

The three boys looked over to him as he drifted over towards them, aware he would have to say his goodbyes if he wasn't going to be suspicious. "You off now then?" James asked.

"Yeah, I want to get there before dark." It wasn't really a lie at all.

Sirius handed him the object he'd been crafting, a small parcel tied up with a bit of brown string. "A get-well gift for your mother."

With the appropriate suspicion caused by Sirius' slight smirk, Remus cautiously took the parcel. "What _is_ it?"

The smirk turned into a grin.

"It's a – "

"Shush Pettigrew!" James punctuated his words with a kick to his shin. "It's a surprise."

Suddenly Remus was glad that he wasn't really going to see his mother. Whatever James and Sirius' surprise was it probably wouldn't be something that she would want to see. It wouldn't be too nasty, but it was almost guaranteed to be something which was probably either slimy or still alive.

-o0o-

The air was thankfully still as Remus hurried through the grounds toward the Whomping Willow. It wasn't dark yet; the sun was just beginning to set, just kissing the Great Lake. Remus would have liked to be able to sit and watch the view, but hurried onwards, scared that he wasn't going to make it to whatever safe place Dumbledore had arranged in time. He hoped that he wouldn't have to transform beneath the earth, for all he knew it would collapse on him. Or he would run back towards the castle. Neither of those thoughts were ones that he was keen to entertain. The walk to the tree seemed further than it had the night before, and if he hadn't been too scared of looking suspicious he would have ran, instead he settled for a scurrying walk, fear pounding his blood through his head.

Squinting in the rapidly darkening half-light, he managed to find the correct knot on the tree, and used a fallen branch to poke it while he dodged the vicious branches of the tree. Getting knocked out at this time of night was not an option. As soon as the knot was touched, the branches curled upwards, allowing him access to the hole in the ground, which was larger than it appeared from outside of the reach of the tree, and beneath an arch in the roots. Ducking down he squeezed through and was greeted by a row of lanterns guiding his way down into the depths of the soil. Remus was enormously grateful for whoever decided that the lanterns were a necessary addition, although he was eleven, part of him was still scared of the dark due to the fact that all the worst parts of his life occurred in it.

Emerging from the other end of the tunnel he found himself in what seemed to be a tatty house. Anxiety bit into him that maybe it wasn't abandoned, although it certainly looked that way from the thick layer of dust coating everything. Remus dumped his bag beside the trapdoor, and shut it, bolting it down firmly. He called out, realising with horror that his voice was shaking, and got no reply except his own footsteps on the bare flagstones. Deciding that it would be safest to check that there was no one in the building first he started making his way out of the cellar and into the main part of the building, shouting out again. Just as he reached what would have been the kitchen his head exploded in pain.

The headache had reached boiling point and had shattered through his skull into the moment that the moon slipped above the ground. Remus helplessly collapsed to his knees, crying out in pain and clutching at his head as his neck cracked backwards and his face elongated into the snout of a werewolf. That was when his cries turned into howls, and his legs crunched backwards sickeningly. Once his entire body was covered with coarse fur the animal fell silent.

The wolf wasn't moving. And then it sniffed once, then twice, the smell of human filling its wet nostrils. Excited and ravenous it howled once, and then tore off with surprising power after the scent. Frantically, it raced all through the house searching desperately for the flesh of the human it so strongly could smell. As it tumbled down the stairs to the cellar its ears and tail pricked up, aware that the trail of odour ended there, and there would be the human who'd brought that scent into such mouth-wateringly close quarters. Saliva dripped from the wolf's muzzle and splatted onto the cold stone floor.

When there was no human to be found, the wolf yowled, it's whole body shaking in the effort, and began racing around again, this time with an entirely different posture. This time the wolf was angry, seething and roiling with anger. In a frenzy of hunger and anger it threw itself against the wall of the house again and again, before turning on itself, snarling. Blood was soon running from the wolf's legs from the puncture wounds of its own razor sharp teeth. When that didn't satisfy the wolf's craving for blood, it returned to throwing itself against the wall, and then back to the trapdoor, scratching at the floor until blood was smeared on the dusty floor as its claws were ripped off. Noticing the bag which had been left there by the boy just an hour before the wolf rummaged through it with its snout, sides quivering.

Yet again, the wolf turned to anger when there was no human flesh to be found. It needed to bite, to feel the blood in its mouth, it needed to reproduce. Every fibre of the wolf's large body wanted to bite, needed to bite. Like a heroin addict needing a fix, there was single minded thought going through the wolf's head. But there was no human to bite, there was the smell of one, as strong as the wolf had ever experienced, but no flesh. Another blood curdling howl wracked the shack and the wolf tore apart the bag with teeth and claws, still searching for the flesh of the human who was no longer there.

The wolf continued to howl and hurdle around the house in a frenzy for the remainder of the night, filling the still, cold air with pained howls. It lashed out at anything it could with its bleeding claws, the few scant pieces of furniture left, the walls, tearing the wallpaper from them, and biting through anything it could get its teeth around. By the time that the moon was about to go down the wolf was panting hard, tired but still fuelled by the frustration of tasting no human flesh for yet another month. Its basic survival instinct was being denied. Then the moon slipped below the horizon and the wolf let out one last cry, piercing in its agony as its bones wrenched back around into a human skeleton and deposited a young boy collapsed on the floor.

Remus Lupin had no idea how long he had been passed out for when he woke up, all he knew was that he hurt, a lot, and that the sun was gaining height in the brightening sky, and if the destruction around him was anything to go by, it had been a particularly painful transformation.


	15. The Aftermath

_A/N:_

This is short, and I haven't updated for a while again, but I just haven't had the time. Sorry.

**nursie91**: Thank you, I tried to change my writing style slightly when describing the wolf to show it's different to Remus in human form. Not sure if that came off though.

**IndigoDragonRider**: Once again, thanks for your kind comments. I hope this chapter helps you to understand his home life better as well.

-o0o-

Remus managed to sit upright, his whole body screaming in agony. He had no idea what had happened over the course of the night, from the moment that the moon came up his body was not his own, and his mind was blank. If there was one single thing that he had to pinpoint as the worst, he would have to say it was the lack of memory. Not the pain of the transformation, or the time it took to heal afterwards, but not knowing what had gone on. Not knowing if that had been the night someone had been killed.

His mother was no longer there to help him put himself back together after the full moon, so he had to learn what to do now, and quickly. He staggered, every muscle in his body aching, down to the cellar where he'd left his things for the morning. When he got down there and saw the shreds of material lying around despair pooled wetly in his eyes. His clothes from the night before had been destroyed in the transformation process, and the wolf had ravaged the spare clothes he had left for himself. It wasn't just the fact that he was standing there naked, and shivering, which upset him, but also that he didn't have many clothes, and couldn't afford to replace two pairs every month.

Sifting through the shreds of fabric he managed to find a pair of Y-fronts which were still largely intact, and some cloth which he assumed had once been his shirt. Putting on the ragged bits of cloth over his cut, bleeding and bruised body, he didn't let his mind wander into thinking about how tired and sore he was. Scanning the floor around him, he found the vial he had brought with him, and gingerly stooped to pick it up, subconsciously measuring the movements before carrying them out for fear of escalating the pain in his body. Any muggle would have guessed he'd been in a car crash if they had seen him at that moment, but in reality he had been slammed against a brick wall, again and again, by the tremendous power hidden within the wolf's legs. With the precious vial in his hand, he unstoppered the top and dabbed it onto the worst of the cuts he could reach, in order to halt the bleeding and take the edge off the pain. Aware that he had salvaged what he could of the clothing, he stuffed the rest into the remains of his bag, and carefully levered open the trapdoor.

If the journey through the tunnel had seemed to take a long time the previous night, it was nothing compared to what it took then. Emerging from beneath the Whomping Willow, Remus pressed the knot to give him time to clamber out of the hole without getting attacked, that was the last thing he needed right now. Realising he was exposed with only ragged clothing to conceal his injuries, he froze automatically, listening out for any movement over the blood pounding in his ears. To his relief he realised that no one was awake at that time of the morning, they would all still be snoring soundly if Peter and James were anything to judge by. Despite the fear that he would be caught urging him to crawl back into the tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow, Remus knew that the rational thing to do would be to get up to the castle as soon as possible, before people did start to awaken.

Halfway up to the school there was a sudden noise which froze Remus in panic. Sure that the game was now up and he would be hounded out of Hogwarts, he was paralyzed with fear, unable to even engage his brain into coming up with a suitable response to any questions which might be asked, the most likely one being, "What the hell happened to you?"

Instead of that question it was a statement which replaced the tuneless whistling he had previously heard. Hagrid, the giant of the man who had directed him to the boats on his first night at Hogwarts, came striding up the path towards him, a wooden pail in his hand. The gruff words broke through the still air, "Ah Remus! Professor Dumbledore mentioned I migh' be seein' yer here."

Remus' mouth gaped like a fish, still incapable of coming up with anything to respond with. The man seemed to know his situation, but as far as Remus was aware the only people to know of his lycanthropy were the headmaster, and Madam Pomfrey. He was sure that no one else had been told, for a start it wouldn't be safe, people didn't readily accept those like him, and there was just no need. Disappointment filled Remus, although he wasn't enjoying keeping it a secret and lying to all of his friends, discovering that the people who had been supposedly been trying to help him had been lying, and spreading that information around was still hurtful. It never occurred to Remus that everything about Hagrid's demeanour was relaxed, from the way his eyes wrinkled against the brightening sun, to the way that he swung his pail.

"No need to worry yerself. Dumbledore only told me see, great man is our Dumbledore."

A weak smile came to Remus' face as he noticed the reverence Hagrid held for the headmaster, and of course, the fact that he was the only one whom had been told. There was something about the man, although immediately intimidating due to his sheer size, which was completely trustworthy and down to earth. If Remus had to be caught by someone looking like this, he was glad that it was Hagrid. Somehow he managed to stutter out a response.

"Y-yeah. Just heading to the H-hospital wing." He yawned, wincing as he discovered that his jaw was tender.

A cheery grin hid behind the bushy beard on the man's face, and before Remus could protest, he had set down the pail, and scooped the boy up in his arms, announcing that it would be "bes' ter give yer a lift." The sudden movement of being swung up onto Hagrid's muscular arms pained Remus, sending shooting pains through his tortured body, but before they had gotten halfway up the hill to the school building, tiredness and lack of sleep had taken over and he was fast asleep, lulled by the swaying of the half-giant's long strides.

-o0o-

When he awoke again, Remus was in the hospital wing. The instant that his eyes flickered open, Madame Pomfrey was at his bedside, preparing to pour a potion into a goblet for him.

"You gave yourself a nasty beating, young man." She said brusquely as she transferred a thick grey liquid from one vessel to the other.

Remus groaned and tried to sit up in the bed, but she shot him a look and he relented. Something told him that he wasn't keen on the woman, he was too sharp and methodical, shouldn't nurses be compassionate and caring? There was no hint of that about her person, but equally she was a million times better than the people who had been in St Mungo's lycanthropy department. He decided that she was just there to do her job, not out to judge him, or if she was, she wasn't to show it openly.

She passed the goblet to him, and he was careful not to aggravate the dull throbbing in his shoulder when reaching to take it. "Drink that, it'll make you feel better." She turned away to walk out of the cubicle.

"Ermm... Madam Pomfrey?" Remus tentatively asked, cradling the potion in on his lap. "How long will I have to stay here?"

"It should only be a day or two." She left the cubicle, drawing the curtain tight around him.

A day or two... Remus mulled that over in his head. It would fit with his lie he supposed, although he would be away longer than he liked. Not only would his friends start to wonder where he had gotten to, he would also miss a lot of school work, and he doubted he would be able to rely on the trio of boys to take sufficient notes to catch up from, they would be too busy trying to hex the Slytherins to pay attention, regardless of the fact that they were all unable to perform any hexes yet. He smiled the memory of the nights they'd spend in their dormitory trying to hex each other in practice.

As he lay in bed, left with nothing but his own thoughts, they turned to his family, and the changes they'd been through all the years. Some of his earliest memories were of his father and mother determinedly dragging him around the country, trying to find a cure for something he didn't yet understand. Those days seemed so distant, when his father still played games with him and acknowledged his existence. But then slowly things changed, so slow that it was unnoticeable at first. But as Remus grew, the doubt in his parents' heads that there would be a cure dwindled, fuelling the misery in his father, and eventually his father was no longer the happy, determined person that he had once been.

It had taken him a long time to understand why, but from snippets of overheard conversations, he pieced together the truth of his father's problems, and finally realised that it was not his fault his father had changed. Although he hated to think it, he was glad that he was at Hogwarts, if only because it would be good for his father not to have to see his broken son every single day. Remus knew that his father blamed himself entirely for what happened, and blamed himself even more for not being able to fix things. And it was that guilt which had taken his father away from him and locked him in a worse place than what Remus went to once every month. John Lupin lived an existence which alternated between two states, anger and self-loathing, and that left his wife tiptoeing around the house, trying to provide for the family and her young son since he had been dismissed from his job four years ago. That was another reason Remus was happy to be at Hogwarts, he would be able to provide for himself and take the burden from his mother. All this left Remus prematurely mature.

It also meant that no matter how hard he tried, he was unable to push away the fact that his existence had torn his family apart, and destroyed the smiling man who held him in baby photographs with a look of pride across his face.


	16. The Hospital Wing

**_A/N:_**

_I've literally just realised that you can privately reply to reviews, so I'll be doing that for the most part now. A giant thank-you to everyone who reviewed as usual though._

**Morningdove14: **_Thank you, I always look forward to your reviews, your crit is always really helpful, I can completely see where you're coming from on the flashback thing, but I wasn't sure where I wanted to take the ending of that chapter and decided I would just get it out since it had been a while. Probably not the best way to do things, I know. Poor Remus wouldn't have made it back to the castle without Hagrid I don't think! The "prematurely mature" thing made me smile when I wrote it haha. And of course, we're all insane here._

_Anyway, back to getting on with the story!_

-o0o-

After two days secluded in the hospital wing, Remus was no longer in any pain from his injuries, however, the healing processes had taken a massive toll on his body and he was still incapable of doing much other than sleep for most of the time. He was laying on his side, pretending to himself that he wasn't really awake, because that would mean succumbing to the boredom of being awake and being incarcerated in the same boring cubical again. At least if he was asleep then he might be able to dream, and those dreams might happen to be happy for once. His mind was brought out of the wandering it was currently doing – for a brief moment he was convinced that he was actually a Ravenclaw Prefect – and back into the present by the jovial shouts of someone down the corridor.

"Mr Black, will you please settle down or you'll have to leave!" Madame Pomfrey's sharp words sailed up the corridor and into Remus' cubicle.

Remus froze at the mention of his friends' name. They weren't supposed to be here, he was supposed to be back at his family's tiny cottage, caring for his injured mother instead of being the one stuck in the hospital bed. If they were to find out that he was here then there would be too many questions to answer comfortably. Maybe even too many questions to answer at all. Even though his heart was pounding frantically, he realised that if they were here then one of them would be injured, and that worried him. He held his breath and strained his ears to try and pick up on what was occurring at the other end of the hospital wing.

He could safely assume that Sirius wasn't injured from Madame Pomfrey's exasperated words, so that meant it was either James or Peter, if it was James then no doubt it would be due to some prank him and Sirius had been trying to play, if it was Peter then Remus' money was on some act of clumsiness. It wouldn't be unlike Peter at all; he was always tripping over something if it was his turn to switch the light off at night, and was rarely much better in the light, much to the others amusement.

There was the sound of a smashing bottle, and the entire hospital ward held its breath as Madame Pomfrey took a deep, audible breath, and they could all picture her swelling up to her full five feet and seven inches of height. "That is it, Mr Black! Get out of my ward. Get out! OUT!"

"But he might _die_!"

Regardless of the importance of staying hidden, Remus nearly leapt out of bed at Sirius' whine. The thought of one of his friends being mortally wounded would be enough to make him scream his true nature from the top of the Astronomy tower for the whole of Hogwarts to hear if he thought it would make any difference. They might not have been friends for long, but they were all that he had, and no matter how much he tried to distance himself from them in order to protect them, he couldn't help getting sucked in by their laughter and good humour.

"I assure you, Mr Potter is not going to have any lasting damage, mores the pity." Remus breathed a sigh of relief, as from behind other curtains there were soft giggles and snickers. "Now please leave before you break anything else."

"Please? I'll sit here and won't touch a thing."

Remus smiled, knowing full well that she would be as incapable of resisting Sirius' unique charm as any of the other members of staff were. Without it Remus was convinced that they would all be spending much more of their time in detention than they already did, which might start to make it difficult to find enough time to even sleep. And knowing that it was James who was injured made him feel slightly better, no matter how much the pair tried to deny it, neither of them knew enough magic to cause any real harm to each other. On the other hand there was no telling what mess Peter was capable of getting himself into, illustrated by the time earlier in the week where he had spent half an hour trapped down the back of his own bed when trying to retrieve a runaway sock. It was only when James had headed upstairs to get a book on Quidditch trivia to test James from that they discovered why Peter had taken so long to reappear after breakfast.

Knowing that the safest thing for all of them was to stay hidden, Remus lay back down on the bed and tried to stay awake long enough to find out what had happened to his friend. He didn't manage to stay awake long, Madame Pomfrey's medicines were certainly taking their toll on him.

-o0o-

"Merlin's beard! What are you doing here?" Peter's announcement woke Remus from a dreamless snooze.

Immediately panicked, he shot bolt upright, causing a stabbing pain to shoot up his side and his face screwed up in pain. "Umm... I was..." He faltered, his head to fogged with both sleep and medication to come up with a quick answer.

Like a raven, Madam Pomfrey swooped down on Peter. "I was not aware I had given you permission to enter this cubicle, Mr Pettigrew."

Peter cowered, and seemed to shrink a further two inches into the floor, no doubt hoping that he could disappear altogether. His face went bright red and he started to splutter, "I – I got lost. Went to the b - bathroom."

Madam Pomfrey's eyes narrowed as she surveyed him closely, her eyes flicking quickly between him and Remus, whose sweating hands were tightly curled around the thin sheets with nerves. She cleared her throat, "Mr Lupin suffered an accident as he was travelling back to school last night, he should be fit to return back to classes on the morrow. Providing he's left to rest that is."

At her words Remus's fingers relaxed slightly, and he released some of the breath he didn't even realise he was holding, but knew that it wouldn't be the end of the story; they would want to know what had happened. It would be best to get it over and done with though, and anyway, Peter would be sure to tell the rest of them, and they wouldn't let him continue to hide. He realised as well that some company would help to pass the time and divert his thoughts away from his family back home, which had been all which had occupied his mind the majority of his time there. Deciding that pretending he had no idea the other members of his dormitory were also residing in the hospital wing, Remus asked Peter why he was there.

"Sirius gave James a nosebleed." Peter grinned, clearly remembering the incident.

Remus smiled with the relief that his friends had been up to their usual antics without him and it was nothing more serious which had landed them all in the hospital wing. He turned to Madam Pomfrey, "Could I go and see James?"

She hesitated, and it was clear to Remus that she was flustered over Peter discovering that he was in the hospital wing. Neither of the boys said anything as they waited for her to reach a decision. "I think it would be prudent if Mr Lupin was to stay in his bed for the time being. Perhaps Mr Potter could visit if he feels up to it?" She spied another grin creeping onto Peter's face and swiftly added, "For half an hour only mind."

The grin becoming fully-fledged, Peter scurried off to tell James and Sirius the news as Madam Pomfrey bustled over towards Remus, concern wrinkling her young face. "I'll be nearby if you need any help, just give me a shout." She nervously rearranged the potions on the bedside counter into alphabetical order. "I really can't see why you want to see them... especially now."

Remus nodded, although he knew that his sharp-witted friends would more than likely pick up on any signal he tried to get to Madam Pomfrey. Although he could understand her sentiments of wanting to keep him in seclusion, he knew he wasn't contagious, and he couldn't ignore his friends for ever, even if it would make things more difficult for him. In the long run it would be better to sort things out now than try to explain why he had been avoiding them later on. One of his biggest influences in asking his friends to come and see him had been boredom though, although Remus had spent almost all of his youth on his own he had found comfort in having people his own age around him, and he wasn't ready to let that go, even for a short while, and not while they were so tantalisingly close.

"They're my friends." It surprised him how defensive his words sounded to his own ears, and Remus immediately regretted how harshly they came off. He cared about his friends, but the nurse was someone he needed to keep on his side if he was going to have a modicum of chance at being able to lead a relatively pain free life.

The curtain to the cubicle was pulled back a second time, and revealed the three boys Remus had been missing, and he certainly realised just how much he had missed them over the last three nights at that point. They were his one and only friends, and it was the only time he had been away from them since he had met them, it was also his only experience of being in near isolation again, and he couldn't just adjust back into being the way he was before. Remus wondered whether it was his wolf side coming out, they were inherently pack animals, and although werewolves only transformed into their furry alter-ego on the full moons, certain aspects did seep over into human life. The healers at St Mungo's had warned his parents of this, telling them that it would be best to cook his meat a little rarer than usual, and that the additional red blood in his diet might help ease the symptoms at the full moon. Remus wasn't sure that it made any difference, but he didn't want to speak out knowing the trouble his mother went to in order to afford the meat.

"Remy, you're in a bit of a state, why didn't you tell us you were in here?" James asked as Sirius deposited him on the end of Remus' bed where he slumped weakly, a trail of browning blood dripping down his shirt.

Once more, it hit home to Remus as his eyes focussed on the rusty colour of the blood how much of a danger he was here. All of his fellow pupils were filled with the same liquid, and all of them could spill it just as easily as James could. And none of their fleshy bodies were enough to keep the scent from the snout of the wolf which was determined to kill them once a month. If he was ever stuck in the castle on the night of the full moon... A mouthful of bile reached Remus throat and he swallowed it back down painfully, the acid burning his throat. Immediately he reached out to grab the goblet of water sitting by his bed, baring his arm from the sheets which had previously been covering it.

At the sight of the boy's skin Sirius swore and jumped forward. "Bloody hell!"

At first Remus was puzzled at Sirius' outburst, all he had done was retch a little, not something unreasonable for someone in his condition, and then realised that his freshest wounds hadn't yet healed and turned into scars, despite the Milk of the Poppy which Madam Pomfrey had been dosing him with in strict rations. Automatically he yanked his arm back under the covers, hugging them to his stomach. His ears burned painfully red as he felt his friends eyes boring into his skull, there would be no way that his lie would stand up to this sort of interrogation, and he couldn't imagine they were going to let things ride after seeing _that_.

The first one to talk was James, who laid a pale hand on the lump under the sheets which was Remus' leg, and he was grateful for the painkilling potions as one of his bruises was touched. "You didn't tell me you were still doing it."

"I was worried about my mother." The mumbled lie scared Remus; he was disgusted at how easily the deceit was now falling from his mouth. These were the people he considered his friends and most of what they thought they knew of him were based off lies. It was all that he could do not to scream out the truth, to tell them that he was a fraud, and it was all a pack of lies. Even knowing that it was for all of their good he struggled to continue to justify it to himself.

_"You mustn't let anyone else know about you." Remus' mother warned him, his face held in her hands._

_Remus squirmed uncomfortably, having been told the exact same words over and over again his whole life. "I know Mum." He sighed, wishing that they would just drop treating him like a little child, he already knew the importance of hiding his affliction from everyone around him, not least because it had been the critical point of everything that happened to him for the last five years._

_She locked eyes closely with him, murky green eyes meeting restless grey ones. "This is so important now Remus. People don't understand those like you, they'll hate you, and they'll hate your friends."_

_The eye contact was broken by Remus as he looked away and to the worn stone floor at their feet, the uncomfortable feeling of eye contract getting too much for him. The assumption that he would have friends bothered him, he didn't know anyone at all, and he had admitted to himself, even if they still hadn't, that he would never be normal. He would never be able to fit into a world with the same people that he tried to kill once a month, his friends could so easily become his victims, and even though it wasn't really him that wanted to eat them, it would always be at the back of his mind. He didn't want anyone else to be hated for what he was either; it had caused his parents enough trouble as it was._

_"Mum, honestly I know. I want to go, I don't want to be sent home." As usual Remus refrained from letting on to his mother just how much he understood of the situation._

_"The headmaster said you'd be alright there, they won't send you home darling."_

_The lie was thin, and they both knew it, and they both knew that the other knew. The eleven year nodded to satisfy his mother and turned the subject onto the topic of what was for dinner._

"You didn't tell us that." James complained, hurtfully.

"I didn't want to bother you."

"You should have sent us an owl, not do that..."

Remus laughed at the suggestion by Sirius. "I don't have an owl."

From Peter's reaction this was more of a shock than the sight of Remus' battered arm, as he stood gobsmacked. "You don't have an owl?! How do you talk to people then? Your family?"

With a shrug Remus avoided the question, grateful that it had moved on from the topic of his limbs. Even though their family's lack of an owl, or lack of a family for that matter, wasn't a painless topic it was more so than trying to avoid the fact that his cuts were the result of being a werewolf, not depressed.

The shaggy haired Black wasn't so keen to let it slide though. "How are you going to write to _us_? You don't think we're going to just let you ditch us, especially now we know what you do when we're not watching over you."

Seeing the strange mixture of compassion and humour on Sirius' face filled Remus with hope. Even after everything that had just happened, both James and Remus being stuck in the hospital wing, and discovering that his friend's smattering of scars was going to be increased from this point onwards, he was still able to keep his humour up, and not become overwhelmingly soppy about the fact that he cared about his roommates. That was something Remus was definitely grateful, he was bad at emotions of the best of times without them getting out of hand.

With a wink of his dark eyes, James looked at Sirius, "We'll think of something."

-o0o-

**A/N: **_You might have noticed that one of the potions used in this chapter comes not from the Wizarding world but from Westeros (ASOIAF). I'm not very inventive, and if they can make it over there then I'm sure some herbologists would have discovered it in the Marauders' time, particularly as it's basically just morphine._


	17. The Jinx

**A/N:**_ I'm sorry. I had writers block, and then by the time I'd gotten my motivation back I'd forgotten my email/password combination for fanfiction. I'm not too sure where I'm taking this now that the main point has been over and done with – the first Full Moon – so I doubt there will be many more chapters left. I will get to a conclusion one day, I just don't know when. Again, I'm sorry._

-o0o-

Remus was summoned to return to the hospital wing by an owl which deposited a letter for him at breakfast, the following week. He realised by now that all of the post delivered in pale lilac envelopes were from Dumbledore, which in some ways was strange, seeing as the man was the head teacher, but in other ways it was comforting. He liked knowing that he was not alone with his secret in the castle. Much to his surprise it was not the only letter he had received that morning, the owl he had sent off with the letter to his father had returned. His hands sweated just thinking about it, as they had that morning while he opened the letter.

To his surprise it was written in his father's hand, although short and to the point. Those four lines of cramped text were the most his father had spoken directly to him in a long time, and numerous times over the course of the day the scroll of parchment had been rolled and unrolled as he read and re-read the words.

_Remus,_

_It's good to hear you are alright. I trust there were no problems._

_Your mother and I are doing well._

_Father_

It was this letter that Remus was reading as he waited nervously to speak to Madame Pomfrey. The headmaster's owl hadn't divulged the purpose of his summons to the hospital wing other than he was excused from lessons to go there, much to the young bookworm's dismay. James in typical untactful humour complained that he was a "Jammy sod" and mused about chopping his own arm off in order to get time off Herbology. Remus had laughed it off as he avoided the inquiring eyes of Lily Evans looking over the top of her book.

_Although he didn't know it at the time, it would be one of the last meaningful conversations that Remus was going to have with his father. Never again would there be father-son bonding, and their relationship would dissolve into mutual unease and guilt. Both would fall into the trappings of self-pity and loathing, but for entirely different reasons._

_John, who had borne the surname Lupin for five years now, was slowly giving up hope for the cure of his lycanthropic son. In one last ditch attempt to overcome the overwhelming knowledge that it had been his actions alone that had caused his child to never be human, or treated with humanity again, he had taken his son down to a secluded field with the intentions of playing some quidditch. Not understanding the wizarding sport in the slightest, Mary had chosen to stay at home, promising to cook up a hearty stew for their arrival. Despite Remus' young age even he'd noticed that their stews were getting less and less hearty and more and more watery as he got older, although he put it down to his increased size and hunger for meat._

_When they arrived at the field, they noted that there were spots of rain starting to fleck down, and a dark cloud gathering on the horizon, looming down with a sinister air. It didn't take the skill of a skilled prophesier to realise that soon the drizzle would turn into a torrent. The youngster realised that he was supposed to be disappointed in this change of weather and forced his face into one of gloom. His father's face however didn't need forcing, he was clearly gutted._

_"It's okay Dad, I'm more than happy to go home and read my book." Remus offered up in an attempt at consoling his father._

_With downcast eyes he addressed the soggy grass. "I'm sorry son, I just wanted to make today special."_

_The boy shifted uncomfortably, itching to get out of the cold field and back to the warmth of his stool, placed carefully by the fire as to not get too hot, nor too cold, and lose his mind in a good book. "It really doesn't matter."_

_"Would you really rather go home?"_

_"Well, I'm at an interesting point in my book where..." Remus' voice sped up as he described the events in the book, oblivious to the fact that his father had tuned out, not interested in the specifics of child fiction._

_"Alright, alright! We'll head back." He said suddenly, putting the front of enthusiastic father which had been more and more difficult to summon up in recent months back on. Realising that his son was eagerly speeding up in the direction of home he asked,"Do you even like playing quidditch?"_

_His child looked back and shook his head before shouting "Race you!" and tearing up the hill to their cottage, leaving John standing in the rapidly increasing rain to realise that not only had he condemned an innocent young boy to a life of main, poverty and misery, but that he also didn't understand the first thing about him. And more infuriating was that his son wasn't fighting the same battle, his son wanted to hide away indoors with his nose buried in a book. Why fight to allow him to go outdoors safely when that wasn't what he wanted. For the first time he felt angry at his son and not at the condition. Following that was deep self-loathing, and he withdrew into himself, only emerging in anger at the world around him and wallowing in drink._

-o0o-

Remus was brought out of his day dream, and realised with hindsight that it was more of a day-nightmare than anything, by Madam Pomfrey calling his name. He stuffed the parchment into his cloak pocket again, and followed her into the same cubicle at the end of the row as he had occupied not so long ago. He hoped it wouldn't be the exact same bed each time, he didn't put it past Sirius to keep checking it every month if he was found there again. Then again, knowing Sirius, he had enough gumption to check every single cubicle in the hospital wing, and Madame Pomfrey's own living quarters for good measure.

"Professor Dumbledore tells me that you've been having trouble hiding your... scars from other pupils, is this correct?"

Remus swallowed and nodded, "Yes Ma'am."

Her hands rose to her hips and she sighed, almost disapprovingly, but not quite, pitying slightly. "I'm afraid there is nothing we can do with the scars themselves. Injuries inflicted in this particular manner cannot be erased."

The young lycanthrope's face dropped, certain that Dumbledore had told him to the contrary before. Anger tinged his thoughts at the realisation that he would be branded for the rest of his life, and could trust no one. No one was on his side, why would they be now? He was a freak and an animal.

"However," She continued, clearing Remus' head of all the anger and hurt, and replacing it with tentative hope, "we can prevent others from seeing them." From her robes she pulled a small tub, which appeared to be empty. "This cream contains a Disillusionment charm. Although it will not render your scars invisible, it will encourage people to see what they expect to see, that is, unblemished skin. In order for it to be effective, it must be applied every day, otherwise the charm will wear off."

Remus' eyes glistened, and the nurse smiled, realising the relief she had given the boy with such a simple potion. Previously she had given similar creams to other pupils, but only for temporary measures, mainly to image conscious fifth year girls, and never to someone so cursed.

Her voice soften as she continued, "If you do not apply the cream then those who see your scarring will expect to see it in the future, and you will appear to them as you did on that day. Do you understand?"

"So the people who've already seen them will still see them?"

Madam Pomfrey nodded, "As long as you apply it religiously they will not see any fresh injuries though."

That slight technicality didn't bother Remus. No one other than his dorm mates and Lily would ever see his scars again, all thanks to a small container of cream, which had once been invisible, but was now flesh coloured. He took it as it was handed to him, and stared at it in bewilderment, aware that it matched the tone of his skin perfectly. He supposed that his sub consciousness knew it was his new skin now. To Lily and the boys he would still be the same old zebra striped lunatic, but to everyone else he would be Remus, just Remus. The boy with too many books and too many holes in his clothes. Maybe he could patch them with the cream too... His mind spun with the uses such a thing could be used for and made a mental note to research disillusionment charms in the library.

-o0o-

By the time Remus had made his way over to the Herbology gardens his classmates were already beginning to file out of the greenhouse.

"Hi! Lupin." James called, spotting him lurking behind a low wall, waiting to merge into the cluster of students. "How'd it go? What'd she want?"

Remus shrugged, fighting to keep the grin off of his face. "Just some stuff. I'll explain it to you all later. Right now I'm panicking over Potions."

A barking laugh came from behind him, "Don't worry about old Sluggy, he's harmless."

"That's easy for you to say, Mr Pureblood-Black." Remus snapped back, annoyed at the interest the biased potions professor was showing the Black child, seemingly intrigued, like all of the teachers, as to why a child from the Most Noble House of Black had ended up in the famous Hogwarts' house of red and gold.

Sirius looked put out by Remus' comeback. "Oh shh, we all know Sluggy's wonder boy is Snivellus."

A question that had been bugging Remus ever since he got out of the hospital wing came to mind, and he couldn't resist asking. "Why _do _you keep calling him "Snivellus"?"

The wink that James and Sirius shared showed that it was likely to be something they'd planned, and Remus' suspicions were heightened when they joined in chorus to reply, "Just wait and see." It didn't help Remus' puzzlement, and not did the fact that Peter's face was grinning – albeit goof-ishly – too.

It didn't take long for the mystery to be solved, only to halfway through the next lesson, just when their boiling cauldrons were reaching a critical stage in the making of another basic potion. Severus Snape's greasy hair seemed to be shining gleefully as the rotund teacher was making noises of glee while gazing into the depths of his steaming Pewter cauldron. James nudged Remus' arm as Sirius snuck his wand from his pocket and pointed it at the boy, who had taken Slughorn's place in staring at his oh so brilliant brew. Sirius mumbled something quietly and flourished his wand, and within seconds Severus had recoiled from his cauldron. Remus watched as he covered his nose with his sleeve – too short for his gangling arms – and sniffed loudly.

Peter squealed and beamed, whilst Sirius hurriedly stowed his wand and shared a sneaky high-five with his messy haired cohort. Moments later the dungeon was filled with thick grey smoke, and student's splutters.

"Everybody out to the corridor." Slughorn's voice boomed around the room before disappearing into a fit of affected coughs.

Dragged by the arm, Remus found himself in the corridor, surrounded by whispering classmates, not entirely sure what had just happened. The professor was the last out of the smoke choked room, and through splutters, announced that perhaps it would be best if they all returned to their common rooms and completed a footlong essay on the characteristics of the perfect potion. As they dispersed they heard him calling back Severus, who was now abruptly called Mr Snape instead of the cringy "Sev" he had been known as by the professor earlier in the day.

"That was brilliant!" James chortled.

"Better than I ever expected!"

"Did you hear him sniffing away?"

"Old Sluggy isn't so keen on his star pupil now is he?"

In the end it was Peter who filled Remus in, in excited squeaks. "_That_ was what landed James in the hospital wing, they were perfecting a nose-running jinx!"


	18. The End

**A/N: **_This is the last chapter from me on this story, but enjoy!_

**Morningdove14:** _I want to apologise for apologising now, I just expect getting attacked with pitchforks for letting my story writing lapse. The typos are my fault, I'm terrible at proofreading on screen, and my printer never behaves, hopefully they're not too horrendous though... Thanks, I'm trying my best to keep the characters in character, and starting to tie things up._

-o0o-

The four boys had hung around the dungeons for a while after their potions lesson had been prematurely dismissed; much to Remus' protests that if they were seen it would be all too obvious that they were the ones which had caused Snape's potion to explode in the first place. James hushed him, and reminded him that he'd been lounging around in the hospital wing while he was taking a battering trying to perfect the jinx. Remus grumbled, muttering something about it not being his fault, but hid behind the statue of a crooked famous potions maker with his dorm mates, making sure he was at the rear.

After a short while, during which the boys did their best to stifle their giggles, Snape rounded the corner, escorted by Slughorn, whom was red in the face even by his own standards. The face of the boy was covered by a polka-dot handkerchief, and snail trails of snot streaking his sleeve reflected in the green tinged light. The tunnel echoed loudly as the loudest sniff Remus had ever heard bounced around the curved walls. Once they were safely out of earshot, the boys were unable to control their mirth for a moment longer, and spilled out from behind the statue, even Remus unable to keep a smirk from his face.

"His sleeve!"

"His face!"

"That sniff!"

Sirius turned to Remus, "See, we told you we'd get you through Potions, if we can't teach you to be better we can at least make you smile."

"We thought you might need cheering up anyway."

The amused crooked grin on Remus' face transformed into something less obvious, but more warming as he realised that the plot had been for his benefit. Of course, they loved causing trouble anyway; James and Sirius had made that clear in their first week at the school. "Just don't make a habit of it."

Sirius scowled, "I didn't think you'd get all goody-two-shoes on us. We'll not bother next time."

Remus laughed at his friend's annoyance. "No, you knut, I just don't think Snape's got that much snot in his body." It occurred to him that his cheery mood and uncharacteristic joking wasn't only due to the prank they'd pulled on Snape, but also from the relief that the cream was going to give him. No one else needed to know, all he had to go was hide each month, and that had gone relatively smoothly.

In renewed good spirits the boys made their way up to the Gryffindor dormitory where they collapsed on their four poster beds. James clutched his stomach in mock agony, "I think I've given myself a hernia."

"Unlucky, I've grown a six-pack." With that, Sirius couldn't help stripping his shirt off and parading around the dormitory, until he was stopped by a shoe flying in his direction from James' bed.

"Sit down. Remus was going to tell us about earlier."

Abashed, Sirius resumed his position on his bed, not bothering to re-clothe himself. All eyes turned to Remus, and his ordinarily pale cheeks took on a tinge of red, aware that he was now the centre of attention. Nervously he picked at the gold embroidery on his bed sheets.

He swallowed before beginning. "Professor Dumbledore asked me to go and see Madam Pomfrey this afternoon, something to do with getting rid of..." He raised his left arm awkwardly. "y'know... the scars. She gave me some cream."

"That'll get rid of your scars?! That's great news Remy!"

Remus imitated James' smile, but shook his head. "Not quite. They can't, something about them being cursed."

The last word of Remus' statement caused a shiver in both James and Sirius, the two boys brought up in entirely wizarding households. "Cursed? That means black magic..."

Immediately, Remus realised his mistake. Quickly his mind started to work overtime, searching for a way to correct his slip up, and kicking himself for suggesting, even slightly, that it hadn't been solely his own fault. His hands began to sweat, knowing that once more he was coming dangerously close to revealing his dangerous nature. "Apparently causing damage towards yourself causes a cursed wound." He saw that they didn't entirely believe him. "I didn't know that either until she told me."

There was still a sceptical look on their faces, but they had relaxed again, except Peter, who had now taken up the frown. "So if I stubbed my toe it would be cursed?"

For coming from Peter that was quite a deep question, although Remus didn't welcome it at the time. Luckily James was there ready to step in, coming up with the same thing that Remus had been thinking of himself but wasn't sure how to put into words. "You don't stub your toe on purpose though do you?"

His response made Remus cringe, but he forced himself to nod, realising that it was a good get out clause for his mistake. The biggest part of his lie that he hated was that they thought it was deliberate actions that had caused his disfigurement, when in truth he would do anything to stop it happening, and that the deliberation was due to his own misery. The constant guilty feelings of his lies were starting to nag him every day, especially times like this when he wasn't able to forget.

"Come on Remus, what's this magic cream actually do then?"

No, he definitely wasn't allowed to forget. "It contains a disillusionment charm; people see what they think they're going to see." He shrugged, "You'll still see my scars of course, because you _know_ they're there."

On Remus' left Sirius shook his shaggy main of hair and ran a hand through it as he shrugged his way back into his shirt. Slowly he spoke as a thought that Remus had tried to avoid him knowing entered his mind. "So we won't be able to see if you hurt yourself again?" It was the most worried that Remus had ever heard him.

It was almost more than Remus could bear, knowing that someone cared about him that much and was still telling them complete lies. And then he remembered that it wasn't a total lie, he did hurt himself, only he wasn't in control of his body at the time. A lot of the time Remus tried his best to distance himself from the animal he turned into once every full moon. He never knew if it counted as being him if his mind wasn't there at the time, all he knew was that it would count if he murdered someone, whether he could control it or not.

Keeping his eyes back down at the bed sheets, he managed to get the nerve to answer, although it was something he could hardly dare to do. If they asked him not to put the cream on so they could check up on him... even if it was just for one night a month... they would find out.

"No. I'd tell you if I did though." He bit the inside of his cheek as he spoke.

"You promise?"

"Promise? Seriously?"

A moment later and higher: "Promise?"

He cringed at that, thankful that all three of the boys had asked so he wasn't forced to look at one individual in the eyes. "Yes." Somehow that wasn't as binding as saying 'I promise' in Remus' mind.

-o0o-

That evening Remus decided that he needed to go for a walk again, there had been too much stress in the last week, with trying to recover from the first experience of the Full Moon while at Hogwarts, and his friends bugging him to promise not to do anything which might cause harm to himself. Using the excuse of having to go to the library he slipped away, although for once he had no intention of going there. Whilst on his way to the Astronomy tower he bumped into Lily, someone he'd hadn't intentionally avoided, but hadn't gone out of his way to speak to. He didn't know quite how to explain his disappearance, or whether the cream was working yet. Having to explain the additional scars wasn't something on his list either, especially as she knew what human caused scars looked like.

"Remus, how's your mother?" She called down the corridor to him as soon as she recognised him.

He looked up from the floor, "She's... she's doing alright."

"What happened to her?"

"I'd rather not talk about it." Remus hoped that she would drop it, and thankfully she did. "It's complicated."

She blushed, "Sorry. How have you been?"

"Not too bad thanks, you?" Remus was getting better at small talk but still wasn't too used to it.

Subconsciously Lily had turned around, and they had begun walking in the direction of the Astronomy tower together. They walked slowly, knowing that they still had an hour or so before their curfew, and as it was a Friday night the majority of the staff were more lenient, with the exception of McGonagall and Merridew, who had cracked down on the Gryffindor quadruplet ever since their first lesson.

"Severus is talking to me again. He's not too happy about what happened in potions though; apparently it was something to do with your friends."

Remus laughed, remembering the look on Snape's face as his cauldron exploded in a plume of smoke. He quickly stopped as he noticed that her face wasn't amused.

Her face was pulled into a scowl. "They're always picking on him, it's not funny."

"I didn't know what they were going to do. You've got to admit it was funny though." Although he knew it was probably not the best thing to say he couldn't help but find the whole situation amusing.

"You're always around them, they would have told you."

"I was in the hospital wing."

"Remus..."

"I'm fine! I'm fine!" He took a risk, hoping that the cream was as good as Madam Pomfrey had said it was, and pulled his sleeve up, baring the arm he'd shown her before. His heart pounded ferociously against his chest as he could see the fresh marks he'd made on it only a week or so ago, and he prayed with all of his soul that they would be hidden behind the cream to her eyes. "There was an accident on my way back, that's why I was there."

It seemed to take a long time before she nodded and looked away, in which Remus continued to silently panic, having no indication on whether the disillusionment charm had been effective or not. The only emotion Lily was displaying was guilt. "Sorry I didn't believe you."

The boy shrugged. "Don't worry about it."

Inside his heart was leaping with knowledge that his scars were invisible to everyone but himself. A weight that he'd never realised was there before had been lifted from his shoulders. It was everything he could do to prevent himself from cracking out into one giant grin.

_A/N: That's it from me on this story I think guys. I may come back and post a second story revolving around what happens in Remus' second year (people discovering that he's a werewolf) but I'm not too sure if I have the time/commitment to do it, I'd want to do it properly if I did start. Keep an eye out just in case I do decide to do it._

_Thank you all so much for reading this and I hope you enjoyed it. I'd not have made it without you guys._

_And out of interest, if you're interested in reading a story about the Marauders' second year, whose view point would you want it from? Remus' again, or one of the other characters?_

_Thank you again,_

_Alex._


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